Bridge #5 Final Presentation

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Kaiyao Li

Product Design now

China

Before entering Parsons, I used to paint and sculpture, mostly watercolor, acrylic paint and I used to have an exhibition of my own art pieces series themed “anarchism”, which is somehow related to the project I made this time

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Introduction to my political issue

The political issue that I am investigating is Ti’an Men Square Protest happened on June 4^th, 1989. This issue is basically a liberation movement that was totally blocked from the masses and the reason I want to talk about it is the reason why: was the government intimidated by the angry people pissed by dictating situation in communist party? Can this issue trigger revolutions, resulting in political instability? People deserve the truth that has been lying in the darkness for decades, people deserve democracy instead of dictatorship, people deserve lights to illuminate our loss not disguise for the wrong. Generally speaking, the government should not block any information from its people and they should respect protest and democracy.

A detailed version of the issue

Ti’an Men Square Protest refers to a liberation movement held by mostly university students in 1989. It started from April 1989, from the condolence for the loss of the last chairman of the PRC, Hu Yaobang. He advocated for freedom and liberty, admitting the mistakes the party had made, and his loss brought China back into a dictatorship by his succession, Zhao Ziyang. Then, in the next 2 months, along with the accumulation of students’ un-satisfaction and anger against dictatorship all around the country, this issue evolved from a condolence into a liberation movement and finally broke out, resulting in severe friction between students and the government. Students decided to sit in the Ti’an Men Square (right in front of the Chinese state council) and go on a hunger strike for what the government had been compared to what they were acting then. This friction cannot be completely solved and, aiming to utterly eliminate the revolutionists for the stability of the country, the government finally decided to apply military strike, resulting in almost 10 thousand deaths. After that, the government claimed there were only several people subtly wounded and post a fabricated video to the news broadcast, demonstrating the government’s toleration. Since then, all information no matter in what form has been prohibited all over China, even including the fabricated video.

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Intro to my project

Based on the political issue mentioned above, 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.

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I first tried to print out the film using paper. After printing them out, I had to use tape to connect each of them since they are too soft and inelastic that I cannot connect them and show a sense of surrounding and haunted. Then I had to choose a harder and more time-consuming way: to run this with UV printer and acrylic board.

Fortunately, this time it worked perfectly and with the elasticity of acrylic board and I connected them using black metal wire.

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Product & Styling Picture

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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.