Bridge #4 Political Issue-Never Forget Freedom

-Project Intro-

This project instructs us to do a political-issue-related installation or zine. For the political issue, this project asks us to consider the shift of this issue from former days to nowadays.

-Ideating and Sketches-

The political issue I have chosen is Tiananmen Square protest happened in June the 4th, 1989. This is not a recent issue, but the repercussion it brings is beyond time. This protest was raised by students asking the government for freedom of speech and reform of the Communist party but was cruelly suppressed using military force and curfew policies. The “shift” element inside is that back then, almost 30 years ago, people in China had the courage to question the government and to protest; however, 30 years later, most of the people in China never know about that issue aimed for freedom and they are just like frogs in a wall, all they can see is what the government want them to see (with the monopoly of searching engine Baidu). Shifting from 1989 to the coming 2019, people’s freedom of speech and their access to information is still considerably limited, and they are getting degenerated to lose their courage even to doubt.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, commonly known in mainland China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led demonstrations in Beijing in 1989. More broadly, it refers to the popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests during that period, sometimes called the ’89 Democracy Movement. The protests were forcibly suppressed after Chinese Premier Li Peng declared martial law. In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators trying to block the military’s advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454.

Therefore, I decided to do a broken garment with Tiananmen Square issue’s element incorporated within. Moreover, a series of photos are printed on plastic sheets for documentation in the shape of films. Besides, these film-plastic sheets will be installed surrounding the whole body, representing people who have been through Tiananmen Square issue will never forget that but during the shift from 1989 to nowadays, they lose their courage and people are still ignorant.

-Making Process-

Find images of Tiananmen Square Issue using Google and convert them to the desktop. Then use photoshop to make a film-like template for pictures to fit in. After that, I export those PSD files using Adobe Illustrator to make the image vectorized for UV printing.

After that, I went to a vintage garment store to purchase a piece of cloth ready for cutting. I rip the garment after cutting a little cut using scissors since it is made from muslin which is easy to rip. After making the broken shape of that, I decided to add two bullet holes at the front to show the violence conducted by the government to their people.

After all the scissor job, I started painting using acrylic paint and black markers. I experimented the paint with water and found it is easy to dissolve and create a sense of blood. Therefore I applied it to the main characters written on the back of the garment: liberty (in Chinese calligraphy). Within the Chinese character, I added 6 and 4 using a black marker so that it can show the date of that beasty issue.

After doing the tearing and painting on a vintage vest, I finally got informed that my UV printing has been ready. After picking them up, I started to use driller to drill 4 holes in the corners of each film chip and connect them with metal wire. I intentionally place the film up-side-down so to show the bloodiness and injustice of history.

-Styling Shots-

-Reflection and Future-

I would like my project developed into a monumental sculpture with a multi-material human-shaped sculpture wearing it to show my theme more directly. To do that, I may still use wood, acrylic board, and metal to make the whole piece dense and meaningful. If, fortunately, I may end up adding more than Ti’an Men Square protest into my piece such as Gwangju Issue happened in 1980 South Korea. I really enjoyed the process of making it since I am a history nerd and the process of blending history, emotion, and art together has been a wonderful experience for me.