Doujinshi are self-produced publications, a tradition that originated in Japan. In the early 20th century, a group of writers self-funded their own publications as an activity of exchange amongst people of like interests. Later this slowly evolved into a form of youth subculture centered on comic books (manga). Manga doujinshi can be generally divided into two categories – parodies and original material. Parodies are created by borrowing characters from currently popular commercial animation and print comics, and freely imagining new plots for them. Original doujinshi express completely independent themes and styles. Japanese doujinshi events exert tremendous influence on the distribution of animation and comics, and have had a powerful impact on the subcultures of other Asian countries. Taiwan’s doujinshi movement is transplanted from Japan, but while spread through subculture in the same way, it has also evolved into an array of distinct interpretations. Original-style doujinshi artist Viva is a major representative of this movement.

The most unique aspect of Viva’s creations is his eschewing of Japanese stylistic influence. His published works, 17 to date, tightly revolve around the themes of personal identity and living environment, and focus on a broad spectrum of subject matter. The several four-panel comic-strip books that Viva has made using the Chinese classics Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Confucius’s Analects as blueprints transform traditional culture and classical allusions into contemporary subcultural phenomena, exploring the definitions of self and living environment in an obviously strongly jocular manner, and clearly expressing the subjective consciousness of self-existence. These tendencies are richly revealed in his latest creation, Doujinshi Doujinshi, which retells the artist’s own doujinshi experience in a four-panel comic strip. On the one hand, it reflects the hardships that doujinshi creators experience getting through life, and on the other hand presents the crisis phenomenon of the living environment gnawing away at subjective self-identity.

Viva’s latest experiment in installation is based on his own creative experiences, tracing back his identity as a doujinshi artist. Among 120 drawers, like a library card catalogue, he has placed 120 four-panel comic strips created over several years. Whenever we pull open a drawer, we feel the physical experiential process of the artist.