Pin Zhuang, 2001
The project is inspired by a real event that occurred on April, 2001, when an American airship, whist violating the airspace of the Republic of China, hit a fighter plane from the Chinese army. The Chinese authorities ended up capturing the sophisticated American airplane that, after arduous negotiations, they finally handed it back to them but piece by piece.
Pin Zhuang in Chinese means "deconstruction" or "puzzle". According to Joan Fontcuberta, the idea of dismantling and remaking an object from its fragments brings us back to the chilhood experience of playing with meccanos and detachable small-scale models.
For this reason, the Pin Zhuang Folder is made up of several elements: a thermoplastic laminate container, an artist’s book with an original text written for the occasion by Jorge Luis Marzo, a DVD, eight prints and one sculpture titled Tiger Zhuang II. This sculpture is composed by 21 pieces of a 1:32 scale model of the fighter plane F-E Tiger II that the user can assemble following the artist’s suggestions.