Pararailing: Railing Codex

Railing Codex is an installation, a community printshop, and a collective dictionary created by Pararailing (Jie Shao, Sixing Xu and Xuecan Ye), their friends, and friends of their friends. Launched in 2022 as a response to the slippage of meaning that marks our post-pandemic world, Railing Codex invites cultural practitioners—artists, curators, writers, poets, scholars, and arts workers—to each contribute a dictionary definition for a word.

This project has now been materialized by RELATED DEPARTMENT into an artist’s book in the form of a slanted dictionary which collects the first eight volumes of Railing Codex. In each volume, contributors select one word from a designated list and interpret it in their chosen genre and language. Then, contributors each select one word from their respective entry and nominate a writer to participate in the next volume. The nominated writer chooses from this new list of words to continue writing.

Artist: Pararailing (Jie Shao, Sixing Xu and Xuecan Ye)

Design/Art Direction: RELATED DEPARTMENT

Published by: Page Bureau LLC (New York) 2025

Languages: Chinese and English

Specs: 736 pages

Dimensions: 100 x 135 x 48 mm

Printing: UV printing; silkscreen, offset printing with spot colors

Cover: Hardcover, leatherette

Binding: Sewn Bound

Edition: 1200

Translation: Jaime Chu, Mike Fu, Jiajing Lily Sun, Sixing Xu, Allen Young

English Copy Editing: Andrea Chu, Kate Costello, Jeff Crosby, Matt Turner, Aaris Woo -Publisher