Blog post 3: Themes & application to Project realisation & Personal development

Cultural diversity is a realism of society which very often is foreshadowed by the excessive portrayal of Eurocentric ideals being the central standard of beauty. This dated promotion in a now cosmopolitan and globalised demographic of audience communities, not only normalise one type of aesthetic, it encourages the labeling of exoticism as an understanding of other rich cultures. Hence, the “othering” behaviour which we once accepted needs to be constantly questioned in hindsight of tokenism and cultural appropriation.

I would approach it empathetically and strategically to retain authenticity of the concept, while translating it under a new cultural lens.

In this project, from the given narrative of Hansel and Gretel, I have decided to draw out learned factors of social, economical and spiritual climate from the time the text was penned, to adapt it as truthfully to my own cultural background and heritage, as a Singaporean of Chinese descent.

The setting I chose to base off the narrative is early 1960s Singapore, with the selected performance platform of a televised musical experience. The original text was published in the times when Germany was struck with a period of fame which accentuated the gap between the privileged and the poor. Morality was primarily governed by Christianity as a religion. Early 1960s Singapore was in a state of pre-industrialisation, where social statuses were clearly defined by huts and apartments, the number of meals a family was able to sustain and the degrees of desperation to earn a living. The main belief system was man-made but it garnered many followers. On that note, I have decided to introduce the Chinese zodiac belief to further represent the characters based on their personality types and also to amplify on the fantasy.

The character I chose to design a costume for is the old woman, also known as the witch.

In the beginning, I decided to track my mood-board with keyword mapping, from “wisdom” and “age” as the starters to “skin” and “organic” being the later development of my visualisation. Progressively, I proposed the zodiac sign of the snake to be the best animal for the representation of the old woman. The snake in the zodiac is described as being glamorous, intellectual and very passive aggressive. Souls born in this year are said to possess a sense of domineering affluence which many would be envious and that aligned well with how the old woman is portrayed in the texts. Collage studies were then created to visualise how the “organic” form of a snake could translate itself as a dress form.

Following that, the textural exploration exercise has led me to decide that the most visible sense of wisdom is language. One image captured was some notes written on a paper which inspired me to think of sustainable ways to turn used paper into fabric. The design of the print would be dependent on the existing inks that were used on the papers used to construct the fabric.

Going forth, I am seeing to continue to articulate the dynamism of diversity, with empathy and courage.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Chua, M (2017) What was Singapore like during the 1960s Available at: https://www.quora.com/What-was-Singapore-like-during-the-1960s (Accessed: 27 April 2020)

Wu, S (2005) Chinese Astrology: Exploring the Eastern Zodiac [PDF Book] Available at: https://epdf.pub/chinese-astrology-exploring-the-eastern-zodiac.html (Accessed: 27 April 2020)

Tan, I.Y (2020) Moodboard [Digital Image]

Tan, I.Y (2020) Collage Study_1 [Digital Image]

Tan, I.Y (2020) Collage Study_2 [Digital Image]

Tan, I.Y (2020) Texture Spread [Photography]

Tan, I.Y (2020) Character Visualisation [Digital Image]

Tan, I.Y (2020) Character Sketches [Photography of Drawings]