Yen-Fang Lo

    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

     Sustainability, diversity and social responsibility, the three main themes this unit comprises, are also the up-to-date buzz words. The fashion industry, especially, speaks a lot about them. These words are even being used by many large brands as a marketing tool. Unfortunately, in my understanding, not much people are taking enough actions on them. What is even more outrageous is that some brands use them as a marketing tool. There is no doubt that some of the commercial actions of these brands help spread the awareness of these issues, but something like a rashly produced advertisement just do no good. 

      Advertisement, a medium we touches almost anywhere and anytime, forces us to eat in all kinds of informations whether they are appropriate or not, whether we are conscious or not. Take the diversity aspect of the key themes for instance, I have seen brands casting asian woman for no reason, but to show that they care about diversity. It not only showed how poorly the brand did research before shooting, but also perhaps can cause a mistake of cultural appropriation. I feel like these deliberately templates people set up sometimes emphasises how you treat them differently. I remembered attending a panel discussion last year, where one of the the lecturer who is a black women, also shared her experience and feeling about it. Instead of feeling included, the feeling of exclusion and isolated is even stronger in this case. I think, as a creative direction student, it is important for me to make sure that whatever I am planning to do does not deliver a false or improper message.

     As mentioned in the lectures, diversity should not be only about race, but also includes age, gender, disables… etc.. It is also about the equality among all human beings. I determine that this will be a guideline I check on myself time after time from now on, and will carry it on later to my Contemporary Portrait Photography personal project. I look forward to see myself creating in-depth contents in the area of media practice, and engaging in an inclusive space that allows people of all kinds. The unit has started to build up a crucial mind set on what I should do in order to take actions in respond to the issues in the fashion industry.

     People often communicate their identity or personality through fashion. As a student who is part of the fashion industry, I feel the urgency and the duty to take moves to change. The themes introduced in the lecture have helped me frame my mind on how I can use my voice to give a positive impact on others. With all the little steps and changes, we can hopefully manage to make the industry we all in a better one!

I encountered Beatrice Bredikyte’s blog post on the site, and it immediately caught my eyes. The “ Welcome back!” at the beginning of her blogs made me felt like a friend of hers, which I thought is a really clever way to get close to the reader. It is obvious that the ‘sustainability’ aspect is what she is concerned of more. Her view on ‘nature protection’ is fluidly carried on in all her blog posts. This made her point of view clear, and showed the evidences even more supportive. 

    The subject she chosen for her personal project is ‘Navigating through Clothing’, which according to her words, is a costume design project (Bredikyte, 2020). It is interesting the way she interpreted witch J’s costume, inspired by a book, ‘Shamanic regalia in the far North’, written by Patricia Rieff Anawalt (Bredikyte, 2020). And how the costume was constructed, using only her daily disposing she collected, definitely respond to her conscious of being sustainable. Encouragingly, she did a fine research on Shamanistic costumes of different tribes, so the final outcome does not feel like misrepresenting others culture. 

    The photos of her work that posted in between words are fascinating. The details such as, accessories on the witch’s rope and the bag were all made by resources found in the wild forest. How she thread all the pieces together is adorable. And I got to say, the bag is my favourite bit of all! Although it is a pity that she did not have the chance to collaborate with other peers in different professional field ( I believe that is for most of everyone else too), the outcomes are still well presented. I wish there is an opportunity to see the video filmed by herself and her dad!

      She emphasised about how the Covid 19 outbreak interrupted the project and life’s upsetting, however, she has never be more grateful to rediscover mother nature (Bredikyte, 2020). It resonates with me a lot, because I also had some similar thought during the pandemic. The crisis has given us time to take a step back and rethink what could be changed in our current life styles and what is that really matters. Ironically, it is proven that the suspension of non-essential human activity had allowed the earth to heal from pollutions. The inconvenience of our living had the nature’s recovering in return. Wild lives have started booming in places where we never thought could see them.  This is the most desperate period, but also the most hopeful timing ever. I am looking forward for the post-pandemic world to arrive. Though I can see that there would be a massive change to our lives in many aspects, and would be hard to adjust. I still believe if we could take real actions and use the knowledge we gained in this unit, this will be the best chance for us to make our world a better place to live in.

References

Bredikyte, B., 2020. Blog 1 – Human destructive nature. [Blog] Available at: <https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/02/25/blog-1-human-destructive-nature/> [Accessed 6 May 2020].

BREDIKYTE, B., 2020. Can the global issues of today’s pandemic be the key for more positive future of Fashion?. [Blog] Available at: <https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/04/18/can-the-global-issues-of-todays-pandemic-be-the-key-for-more-positive-future-of-fashion/> [Accessed 6 May 2020].

BREDIKYTE, B., 2020. Reflection on my Better Lives Project. [Blog] Available at: <https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/05/04/reflection-on-my-better-lives-project/> [Accessed 6 May 2020].

    The subject I have chosen for my Better Lives unit was Contemporary Portrait Photography. In the first few weeks of Contemporary Portrait Photography, we had lectures and talkings with people from the industry. Each session were followed by workshops or tasks to be completed. We had chances to look at a variety of works and aesthetics, and also test with different methods and subjects. During the beginning few weeks, I took series of photos by trying different lightings and playing with aperture and shutter speed.

    My project first started off with home portrait practice, a task we were asked to do. That was the time I just went back to my home country and was on my 14 days self quarantine. I was isolated in a spare flat of my aunt’s. While staying there alone, I examined the absence of portrait. In those photos I took, there were only objects and the space. I explored the relationship between both and the composition of an image. 

    Because of the social distancing and isolation rules governments set up, I feel like intimacy is something lacked around the world during this pandemic. In fact, physical contacts have already been missed much more earlier, as the internet has been widely used in the digital world now. While we breaking new ground in artificial intelligence innovation, the raw emotion and the primary behaviour of human beings are the real things that I strongly believe can never be substituted and overlooked. I felt that using the body and skin can best convey that inwardness I want to present. I did some research in themes of body in different aspect, and one of those article I felt engaging, ’Be kind to your body on lockdown, look to the diversity of people in the real world’ (Ogden, 2020). 

    After leaving my self-quarantine place and went back home, I started developing that idea through lightings, composition and the shooting distance between me and the subject ( body parts). I tried my best to produce quality contents with limited resource. All photoshoots took place in my own house and casting me and my mom, who we both aren’t those ‘ideally beauty’ whether age or appearance. I intentionally took really close up photos to strengthen that feeling of touchiness and create that secured and settled atmosphere by shooting with small aperture. I played around with positions in the frame and the layout of the outcome. These body parts in my photo series are twisted, visually overlapped or in weird angle. 

    For my future steps, I think it would be interesting to see these photos be printed out in large scales, and the do another photoshoot with models interacting with the large printed pieces in an open space. Due to the pandemic, there is an effect on our project in many ways, teachings, limitation of casting, location and resource, etc.. I felt a bit pity for not being able to have more physical workshops, as when I bided for this project, I was so excited about having an opportunity to learn more in-depth about photography and get more familiar using cameras and studios. Though it is not perfect, I did enjoy solving the problems during the process, and learned from it. 

References

Ogden, J., 2020. Be Kind To Your Body On Lockdown, Look To The Diversity Of People In The Real World. [online] The Conversation. Available at: <https://bit.ly/3dsgwmx> [Accessed 24 April 2020].