Bio
Anh Dao is a design student based in Brooklyn, New York. She currently attends The New School and is pursuing majors in Product Design (BFA, Parsons School of Design) and Interdisciplinary Science (BA, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts) with a minor in Literature. Her work focuses on Vietnamese folklore, spiritualism, oral history, and tradition through a diasporic lense. Through her art and journaling she seeks to navigate, define, and celebrate her Vietnamese American identity, as well as explore the fragmented and complicated narratives of her refugee family. She is a bacteria nerd as well! Many of her illustrations seek to bring an understanding and appreciation of bacteria to new audiences. Her laboratory work involves researching antibiotic resistance in NYC soil, as well as how to incorporate microbes into sustainable designs.
Summary
Throughout my course work I have demonstrated these themes, especially in my Studio/Sem 2 Class, Time Class, and Space/Materiality Class. In my Time class I learned how to use Adobe software to edit videos, create audio samplings, and edit images. In my Space/Materiality class I learned the technical skills needed to produce 3D work in wood and plaster. My Studio/Sem 2 classes taught me how to craft a well rounded research topic and then translate this research to create more interesting and informed work. I have combined all the skills learned in these classes to create pieces that are meaningful to me and fulfill a goal I set of learning/exploring a new topic with every piece I make. My academic courses allowed me to conduct this research and utilize my new knowledge to create a piece based on the topic. What made some projects/papers more exciting is if I was fully invested in the topic. This always made my work more developed and interesting since I enjoyed being able to indulge in my interests, since I can’t always do that in classes. Further research on these projects could have elevated them even further. For example, even though I was fully invested in the last project for Int. Studio/Sem 2, my research paper could have had stronger points if I researched more. My Studio project could have been pushed further if I had experimented more.
Highlights
#1 Doi Moi board game
This board game I made for sustainable systems was one of my favorite projects. I first wrote a research paper that explores how Vietnam’s post war implementation of đổi mới policy created rapid industrialization within the country, but has resulted in the destruction of environment in rural farming communities in order to keep up high export demands.The soil and water in farming communities is especially polluted due to heavy unregulated use of pesticides and fertilizers. This has caused problems such as widespread cancer rates and destruction of natural resources, with the only solution being a government backed halt on intense crop production and chemical use. However, economic interest is preventing action from being taken.
I then made a board game based on this research paper, so that players could learn about the issue in a fun way. I constructed the board and pieces out of wood by had, and decorated it with calligraphy paper. I made the board into its own box, to resemble traditional Asian game board sets that turn boards into boxes. I think what made this project interesting is that I got to explore my major of product design, which I did not get to do a lot of this year. I made a board game product that had appropriate aesthetics for my research topic.
#2 Altar
This project was based on the research paper I wrote for Seminar 2. Through my altar I sought to re-contextualize different aesthetics and materials used in ancestor worship throughout several periods in Vietnamese history. Though the altar was very personal to me, I wish that I had experimented more. However, it is one of my favorite projects from this year because of how extensive my research was, and that it was my first instillation. It made me want to continue making instillations for the future.
Conclusion
For the future, I want to become more experimental and less literal with my approach to projects. I want to continue exploring the topics that are important to me, while also generating new topics based on questions that my previous projects generated. For example, when people were interested in my grandmother’s black teeth in my altar project, it inspired me to pursue another project regarding my grandmother.