TONG started fishing in New York City in early 2015. He has since been to various urban peripheries where he encountered ruins, wild animals and vegetation, shamans, and many other things beyond mundane life. As an artist, TONG realized that he had enthusiastically appropriated large amounts of studio time for fishing. It brought him from artmaking to explorations of the city’s less-seen aspects.
TONG keeps visual and textual notes of all his fishing trips: his harvest, his cooking of fish dishes, his tackle, companions, the weather, the route, the landscapes, all of which he archives inside his laptop. This archive became the starting point for this publication.
With more than 200 images, 3 flip books of video stills, and other related objects, the Journal offers a glimpse into TONG’s fishing trips around the city. Photos are printed in various sizes, bundled loosely using fish lines, tagged and arranged according to TONG's organizing habits. Boxed up in a transparent case, the publication materializes TONG’s digital archive, while it also suggests the form of a memory box, a treasure case, and a fish tank.
NYC Fishing Journal presents images and notes from 62 out of hundreds of TONG’s fishing trips between 2015 and 2018. It is an editioned publication, an archive of a project, an artist book, a piece of artwork, a collaboration, and all of the above at once.
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Yi Xin TONG is a New York-based artist. Tong studied geology at China University of Geosciences in Beijing and received his BFA in Visual Art from Simon Fraser University and MFA in Studio Art from New York University. In poetic and absurd languages, he uses multimedia installation, site-specific project, video, and sound to analyze seemingly desperate social conditions, and our contradictory relationships with ourselves and with other living beings, objects, and cultural entities. Recent solo exhibitions include NARS Foundation, Vanguard Gallery, Katzman Contemporary; group exhibitions include the BRIC Biennial, Guangzhou Airport Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, MOCA Shanghai, CAFA Art Museum, Long March Space, Alyssa Davis Gallery, Chambers Fine Art, and Hanart TZ Gallery.
July 2019
Overall dimensions variable
Container size: 5.75 in × 13.5 in × 7 in (14.6 cm × 34.3 cm ×17.8 cm)
Edition: 15 + 5 A.P.
With Certificate and signature by the artist
