La Vie Boheme
La Vie Boheme is a song from musical Rent by Jonathan Larson. The song lists many ideas, trends, and other symbols of Bohemianism. This book turns the lyrics into a book experience, with collages of photos from 1980s New York to celebrate Jonathan Larson's collage-like lyrics.
This book is conceptually built on a three-layer structure—which is inspired by the idea of Three Levels of Musicianship by Benny Greb—of where, how and why. The first layer being where, I made a large-format collage from the different maps of the Alphabet City. The next layer is represented by collages I made with cut-outs from 80s magazines from New York. And the third layer is the lyrics itself, with simple but powerful and dynamic treatment, it communicates the why of their fighting against establishments and conventions.
8*10 inch handmade book, inkjet printed on paper, french-fold, perfect bound.
This was a student project completed at the School of Visual Arts.
Instructor: Richard Poulin
© Yihuang Zhou