Keeping up with the installation piece I made for Bridge 3, I created three posters asking new Chinese immigrants not to forget about their root and culture.

The organization I chose was Chinese Culture Foundation, a non-profit organization based in New York. It’s goal is to share the understanding of Chinese history and culture with the world.

Strategy:

Message: No matter where these Chinese immigrants live, they should not be forgetting about their culture and language.

Reasons Why: One’s culture doesn’t define but is part of the person’s identity. The life they own right now was essentially “created” by their ancestors, who was the first group immigrating to U.S. and had been an extremely hard time.

Benefit: People will at least be aware of the history and the “hidden” identity in them.

Promise: Chinese immigrants today will be proud of their Chinese identity and keep spreading and inherit Chinese culture.

*”勿忘” in English means “Don’t forget”.

Posters in real life:

Moodboard:

Artist: Chiharu Shiota

In Shiota’s installation piece The Key in the Hand in 2015. She created a web of red threads and at the end of each thread, she hangs a key that she collected from people all over the world. Key is a very personal item that stores one’s memories. She deals with the idea of how past invades the present

I picked the Mott St. of Chinatown in NYC because there is lots of history behind the old chinatown and there’s definitely a reflection of the past history in Chinatown today.

My target audiences include the older generation who had been through the immigration process. I want my work to be a memorial for them, and they are somehow part of the work because they contribute their memories to the piece. My work is also for the younger generations who are children of these Chinese immigrants. For them, the installation teaches them a lesson of their grand and grand grand parents and what they have been through. Last but not least, I also want the Chinese tourists who grew up in Chinese territory to see the work because they always forget the Chinese people living in another country.

Rendering/ Process:

Inspired by Shiota’s use of symbolism, I decided to use shoes and red shoelaces as my main materials because shoes symbolize the long journey of Chinese immigrants traveling from China to U.S, and they also symbolize the long history these immigrants had been through. The color red is a representative color of China and it also correlates with the red strings in Shiota’s work.

Final prototype:

It is a fun and innovative project that encourages us, as future designers, to look at something differently and be aware of things happening around us. The innovative design doesn’t have to solve a huge global issue but sometimes can solve some inconvenience in daily life.

Designing the collapsible Tupperware is a worthy experience because it is a fairly challenging task. At first, I thought it would be extremely hard to come up with a design that’s useful and original because there are already lots of nice Tupperware existed. However, researching and talking among the group really push us forward and create a brand new container based on origami.

In terms of working in a group, I sometimes found it hard to negotiate on certain ideas that part of the group agrees on. Also, it’s hard to find a perfect work time that fits everyone else’s schedule. However, working as a group allows the whole thinking process to move more quickly.

From this project, I learned that design process never has an end. We can always take an already existed design and push it to the next level.

When I first looked at the painting, the two people’s facial expressions caught my attention. Their gaze almost made me uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure where they are looking at.

I was inspired by a Japanese artist, Tetsuya Ishida. In a lot of his work, he keeps using the motif of claustrophobia to express anxiety and uncertainty. As a result, I decided to create a collage that gives off the feeling of emotional discomfort.

Tetsuya Ishida’s work:

Process:

I did some research on Testsuya Ishida and sketched out my basic idea. And then I printed out his work and cut out pieces. I kept thinking about the idea of “being trapped and anxious” when I was experimenting different compositions. At the end, I decided to push the piece further by making a three-dimensional box around it and adding four wires.