The Box of Love :
Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection

Artist Book, Book Design, 2020

This little black box is an artist book based on Love at Goon Park  written by Deborah Brum, a biography of the famous psychologist Harry Harlow. In this project, I focused on the controversy embedded in Harry Harlow and his experiments on rhesus monkeys. On one hand, his experiments are praisable because they made revolutionary contributions in the field of psychology and provided scientific proofs for people to understand love. On the other, they are notorious and inhumane as rhesus monkeys were cruelly tortured and sacrificed in the process.  

The box structure was inspired by Harry's laboratory, which was converted out of an abandoned box factory. In his laboratory, there were hundreds of boxes, which contained experiment apparatuses and prisoned rhesus monkeys.

Top view

The book’s pit-like inner structure is gradually unveiled when the transparent interlayers are pulled out.

To show the pain the monkeys suffered, I chose Harry's last experiment, which is also the darkest one, to build the book's inner structure. The experiment and its corresponding apparatus are called “pit of despair.” The scientists put the monkey infants into a pit made of stainless steel and isolated them for more than 6 months to study what love could destroy. In the first two or three days, the monkeys tired tirelessly to climb out of the pit. From the forth day, they huddled up at the bottom of the pit and became depressed and anxious day by day.

Pit of despair

Close-up view

Side view

Back of the box

The book is designed small enough to be held and played in hand. Readers need to hold the book closely to explore the details and hidden information. When the box is inverted, the little monkey’s perspective can be experienced through the tiny window.

Window on the bottom of the box