Blog 1: Lecture Reflection
I have chosen a number of lectures among these thirteen topics to watch. I found that those lectures links to culture intrigue me more, and what is more is these lectures somehow connects to one another, though delivered by different lecturer.
There was an example John shown in the lecture that I had a strong impression with. He showed us a Japanese art work, which from the Japanese perspective, a boat is sailing against the wave. Due to the different ways of reading and writing between western culture and eastern culture, it seems like the boat is riding along with the wave from a western perspective. It is a simple example, but a mistake we often made. I used to unconsciously look at others works in my own thought and perspective, and then deny their interpretation if it is out of my understanding in the first sight. The example given in the lecture hit me hard and now I believe to be open-minded while doing research is effective.
The importance of doing deep research and looking into the background of the work/artist/creator is equally important as not having presumptions. In-depth research is especially decisive to a creative direction students like me, when our projects usually heavily rely on researching. A failed research may lead to culture appropriation mistakes and misrepresentation. Along side with research, consulting with the right people is also vital. As Teleica Kirkland mentioned in her lecture about representation, many of the east asians and south east asians are assumed to be the same, however, they are totally different minority groups though sharing a similarity in culture. I resonate with that a lot, as coming to the UK, me and my friends have experienced quite often that people assume all Asians are from China, when we are actually from Japan, Korea or even in fact is born in the UK.
An interesting point that was brought up in John Lau ’s session in cultural sustainability is, is it possible that we all merge into one big culture in the far future due to how globalised we are now? The answer John gave personally was “No”. I thought about the question later that day and had my answer to it, a conditionally “No”. Though John said that it is quite impossible to become one big culture left, I think we have to take active actions in order to maintain the diversity and originality of each culture. After all, as what Sheldon Chow mentioned in one of the lectures, sustainability is to keep something there so that is can last longer.
The thirteen Better Lives lectures allowed us to see a wider picture and faces in sustainability. It helped me to look back on my previous work and rethink what I can do more in the future to take action on making the world we are living in a better place.
References
Almond, N., Bari, S. and Chow, S., 2020. Diversity Intro. [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion
Gamman, L., 2020. Empathy. [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion
Kirkland, T., 2020. Representation. [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion
Lau, J., 2020. Cultural Sustainability. [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion