Courtesy of Shanzhai Lyric
Lively, straightforward, ancient, clever and strange: a poetry-talk by Shanzhai Lyric
Roving poetic research unit Shanzhai Lyric will respond to the themes of mistranslation, desire, fashion, gossip and the lyric tradition in Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s work.
After a poetry-talk they will be joined in conversation by feminist shoplifting scholar Silvia Bombardini, discussing the counterfeit as a radical act of theft.
BIOGRAPHIES
Shanzhai Lyric (est. 2015) is a body of research focusing on radical logistics and linguistics through the prism of technological aberration and nonofficial cultures. The project takes inspiration from the experimental English of shanzhai t-shirts made in China and proliferating across the globe to examine how the language of counterfeit uses mimicry, hybridity, and permutation to both revel in and reveal the artifice of global hierarchies. Shanzhai Lyric circulates their ever-growing archive of poetry garments in the form of poetry-lecture, publications, and installations. Their work has been presented in unofficial and official spaces including Storefront for Art & Architecture, Amant, Times Museum, INIVA/Stuart Hall Library, Women’s Art Library, Abrons Arts Center, SculptureCenter, Artists Space, MoMA PS1, Printed Matter, Harvard (AFVS), MIT School of Architecture & Planning, YDP, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Selected publications include essays in The New Inquiry, Viscose, The Serving Library, Capilano Review, Vulture and Art Review Asia. Endless Garment, which documents 10 years of archiving poetry-garments, is out now with Pioneer Works Press and launches at the National Poetry Library in London on October 7, 2026.
Dr. Silvia Bombardini is an Associate Lecturer, currently teaching at the London College of Fashion, the London College of Communication, and Central Saint Martins. For her PhD at Goldsmiths University, she researched shoplifters’ clothes at the turn of the 20th century. For her MRes, she revaluated luxury counterfeits from feminist, postmodern, and postcolonial perspectives. Bombardini contributed to edited books (Radical Fashion Exercises, The Cultural Construction of Hidden Spaces), and peer-reviewed journals (The Sociological Review, Excursions). Before academia she worked as a journalist for several international publications, and most regularly ran a ‘Coming of Age’ column for Modern Weekly China. Bombardini is also a film curator, has organised screenings in theatres and galleries, worked with MUBI, and curates the documentary selection of the ASVOFF film festival in Paris. Her book, The Shoplifter’s Monologue, is out now with Semblance Press.
Roving poetic research unit Shanzhai Lyric will respond to the themes of mistranslation, desire, fashion, gossip and the lyric tradition in Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s work.
After a poetry-talk they will be joined in conversation by feminist shoplifting scholar Silvia Bombardini, discussing the counterfeit as a radical act of theft.
BIOGRAPHIES
Shanzhai Lyric (est. 2015) is a body of research focusing on radical logistics and linguistics through the prism of technological aberration and nonofficial cultures. The project takes inspiration from the experimental English of shanzhai t-shirts made in China and proliferating across the globe to examine how the language of counterfeit uses mimicry, hybridity, and permutation to both revel in and reveal the artifice of global hierarchies. Shanzhai Lyric circulates their ever-growing archive of poetry garments in the form of poetry-lecture, publications, and installations. Their work has been presented in unofficial and official spaces including Storefront for Art & Architecture, Amant, Times Museum, INIVA/Stuart Hall Library, Women’s Art Library, Abrons Arts Center, SculptureCenter, Artists Space, MoMA PS1, Printed Matter, Harvard (AFVS), MIT School of Architecture & Planning, YDP, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Selected publications include essays in The New Inquiry, Viscose, The Serving Library, Capilano Review, Vulture and Art Review Asia. Endless Garment, which documents 10 years of archiving poetry-garments, is out now with Pioneer Works Press and launches at the National Poetry Library in London on October 7, 2026.
Dr. Silvia Bombardini is an Associate Lecturer, currently teaching at the London College of Fashion, the London College of Communication, and Central Saint Martins. For her PhD at Goldsmiths University, she researched shoplifters’ clothes at the turn of the 20th century. For her MRes, she revaluated luxury counterfeits from feminist, postmodern, and postcolonial perspectives. Bombardini contributed to edited books (Radical Fashion Exercises, The Cultural Construction of Hidden Spaces), and peer-reviewed journals (The Sociological Review, Excursions). Before academia she worked as a journalist for several international publications, and most regularly ran a ‘Coming of Age’ column for Modern Weekly China. Bombardini is also a film curator, has organised screenings in theatres and galleries, worked with MUBI, and curates the documentary selection of the ASVOFF film festival in Paris. Her book, The Shoplifter’s Monologue, is out now with Semblance Press.
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