Spaces

Describe your idea and concept of your work in relation to the festival outlines:

My submission responds to the issues of power, love, and conflict in the context of home. A highly emotional and psychological notion, the home is conventionally understood as a place of refuge and recluse. The definition is not limited to a physical space, but has much to do with lived experiences. To be entitled to privacy and to feel secure are related to a sense of control over one’s environment. The ideal shelter, in both its interior and exterior, provides the love and comfort.
However, variations in this description do exist. Home can be transient, broken, and/or distressing. Our relationships to the location, the structure, the possessions and the experiences, shape our perception of home.
Inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, I developed a cultural probe to collect information about the different attachments people have of “home”. Borrowing from the practices of word association, six individuals from various demographics and living situations were given a set of instructions. Participants were asked to (1) conduct the assignment in their self-defined homes, (2) take a photograph in response to a list of provided stimulus words, (3) work with their initial responses, and that (4) photographing repeated spaces are acceptable.
"Spaces" is most stimulating as a process and a study of space. The collected images reflect the individual’s ideas of home, family, and self-identity. Consequently they represent diversity in the idea of home.

What kind of communication approach do you use?

My submission and recent body of work have developed largely through the methodologies I have applied. Working with anthropologic and ethnographic interests, my methodologies rely heavily on participation and collaboration. My involvement as a designer/ethnographer/facilitator is to instruct, to gather and to present the harvested data. The familiarity of home lends itself easily to this mode of operation. Given its emotional and psychological nature, the definition of home is highly subjective. As a comparative ethnographic study, the application of a poster is chosen for its honesty and immediacy as all the information is revealed to the viewer. An image of the supplied instructional booklet gives context to how the “responsive photographs” have been collected. The grid arranges the images so they may be “read” in two sequences: by row (series belonging to a single individual participant) or by column (a series of all the participant’s associations with the word). The most beneficial aspect of the project would be the presentation of the primary research as the artifact itself. Curating the responsive photographs to construct a falsified narrative is not the intention. The presentation is an honest display of various definitions of “home”. Certain objects proved to have strong associations with home, as seen with the bed, bookcase, and toiletries, photographs and living plants. Purposefully left inconclusive, the reader plays an active role in deciphering the connections between the stimulus words, the responses and themselves.

What are in your opinion concrete benefits to the society because of your communication?

My submission draws attention to the overlooked and underappreciated domestic environment. Ideas of home are reinforced in our everyday vernacular, but are usually at the risk of appearing kitschy. My submission examines the rapport between space and identification. It reintroduces the home as a rich environment to learn about interactions and attachments. Ultimately, the project’s worth is in the participatory aspect. The process of collecting primary research was most important. Allowing the communication design speak to people about people reiterates humane aspect of design.

What did you personally learn from creating your submitted work?

The issues of love, conflict and power are ingrained not only in the notion of home but also in the role of the designer. Relinquishing control of data—in this case, the returns from the cultural probes—and working without an idea of the end deliverable was a process that was drastically different from conventional ideas of visual communication.
In my design education, I was taught that, as designers, our skills and knowledge sanctioned our decisions superior. Preoccupied with aesthetics and style, the concept and message may be neglected. It is easy to forget that design is about communication and not about self-indulgence. "Spaces" was an important reminder of the humanity in communication design.

Why is your work, GOOD communication WORK?

Good communicative work is most effective when no explanation is needed. The work is efficient in relaying a message that rewards the user for its time and attention. I believe "Spaces" is an example of good communication because of its ability to discuss a complex relationship through simplicity and clarity. It celebrates the design as a collaborative process from facilitators, participants, to receivers. It presents the home as an umbrella of interpretations with multiple meanings and no incorrect answers.

Where and how do you intent do implement your work?

"Spaces" is in part of an exploratory body of work that investigates the different facets of “home”. Taking the form of print, screen, audio, objects, and (simply put) ideas, these pieces have developed from a labour of love and attention to the interactions between human beings. Without intentions for commercial gains, I hope the work rejuvenates a new found curiosity in how we archive, communicate, function, and operate within the places we call home.

Did your intervention had an effect on other Media. If yes, describe the effect? (Has other media reported on it- how? Were you able to change other media with your work- how?)