RETO CHEN

Never Been In Love – book preview, created by Reto Chen.

About the book:

“Never Been In Love” is a book in which I examine the experience of an inexperience. My documentation grew from a small collection of spontaneous writing and private poems into an archive of sensitivities collated through chance encounters, cities I lived in and left behind, and confrontations with the self. In sections, the book interrogates mechanisms (some maladaptive) through which we regulate-rationalize emotions and desires such as affection and affluence to become the model human, but in certain abrasion of our humanity. Not quite the portrait of romance– the book is an evolving mold of both an attached and detached human, a singular being, negotiating one’s inescapable singularity with instincts to connect and be connected to in modern individualism. Illustrations, collages, and visual elements supplement the writings. Fueled by a continuous stream of consciousness, the visuals I create serve as portals, offering readers glimpses into the landscape of my mind.