Month: December 2020

Me and my dog both experiencing physical unwellness recently, she got her spay surgery and I got gastroenteritis happening with a headache which dramatically decreased my efficiency of making things done. Well, life continues, and time never stops, things have to be done. Looking back to what I have done this semester, the first evidence I want to recall is my photo album.

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In my album, 70% of images are my dog, 20% of the time I was with my friends, 10% other pictures(dishes, projects, references, etc.) This year, my dog got a chance to play in the snow for the first time in her life. I finished a furniture project for my undergrad. My students have been accepted to UBC and OCAD. My dog became 1 year old. I received several offers of master degree. I made dozens of vlogs through the summer. I visited the Vancouver Aquarium for the last time before it permanently closed. My friends got married in the pandemic. I got registered common law with my boyfriend. My best friend got a cat. My brain has begun to reoperate because of this program. I am very grateful for the ordinary life, I am always envious of others who have many shocking experiences, some may have several master’s degrees, some might finish their life goal, but real happiness is living in the moment and being ordinary.

Crayon Shinchan: ” Mom, ordinary people are the happiest, sickness, accident, bankruptcy, divorce, we do not know when these things will happen, if you can spend your life in an ordinary way, of course it is a gratifying thing.”

In the next stage of practice, I hope to maintain a stable mood and discover more beautiful things in ordinary life (Pablo’s photography has gave me a lot of great insights for seeing great scene).

The brain stops functioning is a terrible thing. I think that being idle for a long time will slow down the operation of the brain. The human brain is like a motherboard. If it does not operate for a long time, it will burn the motherboard once there is a demand. I have to let my brain remain operating through this lockdown situation, these courses have successfully activated my system.

The 501 visualizations clearly show where I’m at right now. I really want to discover more possibilities with the surroundings around me. Also, incorporating the traditional Chinese ideology into my design methodology. This year has a great start point for me to think about what I want to do, what I like, what I wish to achieve, so I have the opportunity to think about myself without any other restrictions. For this last action, I want to leave some space for myself in 2021 to explore other ways of knowing and explanations to respond to this.

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Starting with a circle, and I want to end with a circle. Also, through this last action, I want to tell myself. Imperfections has it’s own beauty, sometimes thinking in the opposite way would provide different perspectives.

I was taking the traditional chinese ideology class during the summer, and I stopped learning this lesson when this semester starts, I would like to catch up with the class through this winter, and try to understand it in depth to support my future research.

One last comment for today (2020 Dec, 4): Every task requires an infusion of emotion and attention. A good dish cannot be achieved by worrying about a lot of other things. I wish I can hold this passion for explorations through these two years of study.

The circle symbolizes the circulatory system of nature, and circling is also a way of communication with nature, starting with the planet in the first action and ending with a golden sphere for my last action. ✨ peace out.

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Several questions left for my future self:

Any consider to incorporate dog care in your design practices?

Are you changing your mind on what you have decided this semester?

Are you sure you understand what you actually want?

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The relationship between people and things will always exist, and the way how we live in the past is different from how we view it now. The way how people living in has changed through different eras.

Just like in the past, without such advanced technology and science, natural resources in the past would not emphasize the importance of protection and the concept of sustainable development as in modern times. Then in the future, how will the relationship between people and things change?

2020 pandemic has brought us a lot of changes. Due to the decrease in the frequency of going out, the communication relationship with social distancing outside has changed. In this change, we have become alienated from some things. At the same time, we spend more time at home. Surroundings close to us have been paid more attention. What kind of new lifestyle will the changes bring to the world by covid19 during this time? how do we appreciate the ‘things’ around us? What lifestyle will be in the near future because of this change?

To start with, I have done an open virtual workshop with my friends and see how their opinions are towards future surroundings.

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Some answers: autonomous car, lightspeed plane, superfast delivery, 3D printed houses, smart assistant, etc. They were quite interested in smart and technology development. In order to drag the topic back to ‘home’, I was giving 3 options to them, the first one with the high-tech interior appliances, no.2 with a more natural sense of feeling, no.3 is more back to the cave style. Most of them picked the second one which has better lighting quality and a minimal style. Some of my friends stated that technology involved home is great but not the main design of the environment, it should assist people when needed, and hide under the surface when not needed.

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Reflecting to my 501 class, I was trying to figuring out my research method through the explorations I have made this semester. Starting with the spiritual research period, exploring through nature and sustainability, finally landing in home design area

Thinking through the relationships between me and my home, I wish to record my action track and see how frequent I am interacting with space and how my emotions go with different area. So I hand-drawn a floorplan of my apartment.

I used pins to mark the areas and two colours of thread to record two days of trajectory. Since it’s almost reaching the end of the year, there are a lot of work for me to finish, so I spent a long time in the study room recently. At the same time, my dog has occupied a large amount of time in a day.

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I was using colored block to mark the area.

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Based on the color I’ve chosed for each section, I have created a set of color practices to record the emotional experience through time.

every 9 blocks composed a unit, and from top left to bottom left represents from January to April when I was still worrying about my undergrad project and try to finish the physical production before the pandemic. The middle part was representing the time before this semester starts, and there’s this red block where changes my trajectory of the year when I received my offer of admission from ECU. The last four represent how this semester goes, most of them are following the normal status, and I’m appreciate for getting back to school.

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I can not stop making these lamps, the third one has been created through this action. It is specially customized for my best friend, the pearls represent she is like a precious pearl to me. Even though she left school but our friendship still here. Each beam will be sent to different users’ personalities, and I’ll see how it goes for next year.