Forming Direction
Exhibition, for UCCA Lab and CWDF.
Type
Exhibiton
Date
October 2021
Site
Xintiandi,
Shanghai, CHINA.
Majoring Part
Concept, Spatial and Installation Design, Drawing and Modeling, Project Management.
The project is part of a thematic exhibition for the China Women’s Development Foundation named “Dating the Genius Mom”, as well as part of the Shanghai Fashion Week event. “Forming Direction” refers to the image, material, time and process that ultimately shaped a thought symbol. By using silver metal material as the overall wrap, and inserting some orange elements, the “traditional” and “feminine” works are reshaped in the futuristic exhibition space, people are urged to think again about the direction of shaping women themselves under the meaning of modern society.
In this project, I am mainly responsible for all parts from idea to implementation, including creative ideas, design refinement, space design, exhibition design, theme installation design (excluding lampshade pattern refinement), modelling, drawing, material selection, landing management.
As an exhibition for women and intangible cultural heritage, “female” is the theme that connects the three venues. When retelling “female” through colours and materials, silver has become the choice. At the end of Donna Haraway’s Manifesto Cyborg, she said:
It is an imagination of a feminist speaking in tongues to strike fear into the circuits of the supersavers of the new right. It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories. Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess.
A mechanical and powerful metal corrugated board become the main element of site shaping. Under the silver cyborg lines, a new and ambiguous self is mapped out.
The sense of weaving organized by the metal lines brought by the corrugated board and the unique reflection effect better bring out the artworks in the venue. From the pure silver lines in “Silver Audition”, to the intangible cultural heritage weaving artwork on the orange interface in “Flowing Pattern”, to the art installation with silver metal shaping and weaving in “Weaving Mirror”, “female” and” Cyborg’s intentions were intertwined back and forth.
As the culmination of layered intentions, in the installation work “Flowing Pattern”, we finally extracted several classic intangible cultural heritage woven artwork patterns and generated them by computer to make them “weave” on the metal ceiling.
Original Pattern
Generated Pattern
In “Weaving Mirror”, traditional handicraft patterns are further extracted from traditional materials and woven on silver metal materials. The traditional culture and female perspective are constantly being reinterpreted now, constantly activating its uncertainty and diversity.
In “Silver Audition”, the artists use different media materials and visual metaphors to jointly explore the cultural construction in the female perspective. Therefore, in this themed space, the silver material that emphasizes reflection and tenacity completely wraps the space, creating a space that is both futuristic and stylish.
In “Flowing Pattern”, the artists use intangible heritage technology as a source of inspiration to present the interpretation and inheritance of female culture and craftsmanship. In this themed space, similar to the interspersed technique of handicrafts, the space is intertwined with orange “vitality”, blending with the unique silver reflection, showing the vitality of traditional craftsmanship.
