Intercultural Design Project 1
Week 1 - Week 3
Chan Meiling / 0337771
Intercultural Design/ Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylors University / Project 1
INSTRUCTIONS
LECTURE
Week 1
On today's lecture, Mr Asrizal briefed us about our assignments and the upcoming activities. He started off by explaining that we will have to choose a culture to study and we will have to ' frame' the culture without altering the facts and making sure it's appropriate, respectful to the cultures that we are doing.
Notes:
What is framing?
In visual arts and design, framing is the presentation of visual elements in an image, especially the placement of the subject in relation to other objects. Framing can make an
image more aesthetically pleasing and keep the viewer's focus on the framed object(s). It can be said
that in framing, the designer presents his view and message to the audience.
Then we will have to “frame” our studies within a chosen theme decided, to convey our
interpretation or adaptation of the culture.
We are required to choose from one theme from the list below:
1. Preservation
- To protect their heritage practices from disappearing because of lack of use, curricular exclusion, or devaluation by the broader society or the act of using deliberate and well-designed methodologies, to maintain cultural heritage from the past for the benefit of the present and future generations
2. Revival
- The formation of group identity around a common culture, where a claim is forwarded that the aspects of culture with which the group identifies have been recovered after losses due to colonization, forced or voluntary relocation, oppression, or modernization.
3. Sustenance
- The state of being sustained
4. Assimilation
- The process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviours, and beliefs of another group.
5. Trends
-the tendency of an individual to acquire a particular style, behaviour or attitude because everyone else is doing it, Culture trend prevails inside the culture
Later on in class, Dr Charles explained to us about ethnography and netnography.
Ethnography- The scientific description of peoples and cultures with their customs, habits, and mutual differences. (the study of people in person, f2f, research approach, focus)
Netnography- The understanding of social interaction in contemporary digital communications contexts. (related to data collection, analysis, research ethics, and representation, rooted in participant observation.) (From responses, feedback, Where does it come from? What's the theory/ hypothesis?)
Week 2
On our second lecture, we have two special guests which Mr Tintoy and Ms Natasha.
On Mr Tintoy talk, he showed and explained about his work and characters design. He has created many character designs with the fusion of the traditional wayang kulit which is the shadowed puppet and modern characters in movies. Some of the examples he did were Star Wars, Upin dan Ipin and he has even created a wayang kulit themed music video for Ed Sheeran which I find really fascinating.
In his talk, he mentioned that it is important to remain the essence of the traditional culture while incorporating or fusing it into a completely new/pop culture. He said that it is always vital to understand and respect the culture, learn as much as you can from the expertise if possible, collecting correct pieces of information, and follow the principles of the culture or tradition while fusing or creating something new based on the culture.
reasons why batik is getting less attention these days.
I personally think that Batik is a beautiful form of art and I was curious about how Ms Natasha can or will introduce and encourage the younger generation nowadays to wear it. Hence, I left a comment below and this is what she has responded :
Week 3
This week, we have two special guest speakers which are Mr Munir and Dr Emelia to share their experiences in different aspect of the culture field.
Mr Munir shared his experiences working with many countries and different cultures. In his talk, he mentioned that colour is one of the most important aspects when it comes to creating a design or even creating something that is related to a specific culture. He stated that it is important to know and understand the purpose of you creating your artwork. It is crucial to learn and find out what is the meaning of colours based on the culture, or the feelings to evoke by using colours based on the location and culture. The examples that he has given was really interesting as well, for example, the use of pastel colours in hospitals instead of strong eye-catching colours, the different meaning of colours based on the difference of culture etc.
Next up, our second guest speaker Dr Emelia shared about her research in cultural studies and she shared with us some reflective questions we can ask about ourselves while doing research which I find helpful.
The questions are:
- What does my own research tell me about my own concepts of culture?
- Have I considered socio-political contexts? What other contexts are relevant?
- Am I privileging certain artforms over others? Why?
- Am I producing certain stereotypes?
- How does my own social/ political/ educational background affect my understanding?
- Have I considered the historiography of this topic?
Moving on next, she also talked about overcoming art block, perfectionism and procrastination which I find quite helpful as I can totally relate at this moment. One thing she said that really caught my attention is to just have fun and enjoy what you are doing instead of being afraid of the people's judgements. Besides, she also introduced a book to us which titled 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron.
Week 1
Cultural Research and Proposal Ideas
To make the discussion easier, our group leader, Tze Earn created a notion board so that we can list down our ideas.
Google doc link on my idea suggestions:
Cypriot Culture (Assimilation)
Cypriot Culture (Assimilation)
Week 2
After several long discussions later, our group has decided to go for Cypriot culture.
Week 3
We then prepared a presentation slide so that it will be easier for Mr Asrizal to understand the direction that we are going for.
Brainstorming process
Proposal Presentation
After the feedback, we made some amendments and added on some of our idea sketches. My idea suggestion was about designing Instagram posts to creating layouts to attract attention from people
Idea sketches done by me
FEEDBACKS
Week 1
Mr Asrizal reminds us to make sure that we collect enough data and we must state our reason clearly about why did we choose the culture to study and research on.
Week 2
Sir said that our topic is too broad he suggested ys to try and choose one to study on and refine the characteristics. He also suggested changing the theme from preservation to assimilation and open up the audience, highlighting what's interesting about that specific culture.
Week 3
Sir suggested us to refine research questions and do deeper research on the history of the tradition. He suggested to also identify the defining characteristics and explore ways to introduce this tradition in an enticing way.
REFLECTION
In this module, I find it really challenging and the direction is tough to be decided on as the topic 'culture' is really broad, and everyone has a different opinion in the group at the beginning. All of us in the group felt really lost and finally, we have decided on the Cypriot Lefkaritika craft culture.
The reason why I've suggested this craft was because my grandmother used to be a tailor and growing up as a kid I used to do embroidery with her when I visited her during the holidays. As we read more about the Leftkara lace, we found out that it was also a Cypriot Culture which was taught by grandmothers to mothers, mothers to daughters, which was relatable to me and the reason why I felt a connection with it at the beginning and suggested to my group mates.
However, it also puts me under a lot of pressure as this craft culture is not that popular and I'm also worried that we might not able to find much data as most of the information are written in Greek but not in English. Moreover, most of the embroiderers are quite old and not technology savvy, so I was worried about not being able to do interviews with them to collect our data while I was suggesting this topic to my group mates.
Further Reading & Research
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1035571.pdfDuring my free time, I went on to read about how research teams normally do their work distributions. However, there isn't actually an exact way to do that because of many different circumstances and situations. Even though I am not the leader and Tze Earn is also doing well as a leader, I just thought that attaining these skills and knowledge about leadership in a team and taking the lead when we are lost could be beneficial to our group and myself as well. From the past experiences I've had, I believe that to become a good leader, one has to first a good follower first.
I found and read about some comments from a Facebook post regarding the craft by a page called Cyprus Mail. We can clearly tell that there are people who still appreciate this culture and hope it will able to live on.
Links:
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