{ IDEA: SPACE REDESIGN }

Inspired by the Emma Talks, I decided to redesign the practice room area (basement of Snell music wing) for the Emma community, in an attempt to make it a more comfortable and inviting space.

The first thing I did was to decorate the door knobs of the practice rooms. Hopefully the bows and flowers would let the musicians feel more welcomed when they go practice.

I had a conversation with Ms. Bendall, my psychology teacher, about what kind of space would make people feel a sense of security. She suggested that soft and warm-colored objects are effective. Things that remind us of enjoyable experience could also work well. So I had the idea of creating a "candy floss" room. 
I dyed the polyester pillow forms with acrylic paints. The colors I picked were all vibrant  and resemble the typical candy floss colors. 

The pillow forms will be sticked to the wall together with some paper crafts that would remind people of childhood.

{ INSPIRATION: JEEYOUNG LEE }

"Recently graduated from Seoul’s Hongik University in her native South Korea, JeeYoung Lee shoots the invisible. Whereas traditional photography submits extracts of reality to our eyes, the artist offers excerpts from her heart, her memory, or her dreams. Restrained by the inherent limits of the conventional photographic medium, she adds plastic creativity and theatrical performance to it, in order to blow life into her immense needs of expression, and interrogation. For weeks, sometimes months, she creates the fabric of a universe born from her mind within the confines of her 3 x 6 m studio. The moment required to set the stage gives her time to meditate about the causes of her interior conflicts and hence exorcise them; once experienced, they in turn become portents of hope."

"Anxiety"

 "Nightscape"

 "Broken Heart"

"Flu" 

"Maiden Voyage" 

"Childhood" 

"Resurrection" 

"Panic Room"

{ INSPIRATION: THE OBLITERATION ROOM BY YAYOI KUSAMA}

During the past winter break, I went to see Yayoi Kusama's solo exhibition, "A Dream I Dreamed", at MoCA Shanghai.
One of the installation art piece she did was named "The Obliteration Room".
Each visitor would be given some stickers of colorful dots of different sizes, and they can stick it anywhere in the room that is painted completely white. The white room would then be gradually "obliterated" over the course of the exhibition As more and more visitors participate, the room turns into a world of vibrancy.

{ PROCESS: PREPARING THE TAGS }

I recycled bottle caps to make the tags to make the process more eco-friendly.
To a community, a good environment is significant.

 I intentionally chose bottle caps of various colors, sizes and materials to make to piece more visually interesting.
It is hard to come up with words of identities. There are so many things that I could include but there is a limited amount of caps, so I have to consider which ones are more meaningful.

{ INSPIRATION: TANGLE PROJECT BY POLYGLOT }

"Tangle by Polyglot is a huge, messy, fun, interactive elastic-weaving event created live by children and their families. It's part mass visual arts installation, part performance, part playground, part dance party and all chaos. "

{ INSPIRATION: "WHAT MADE ME" PROJECT BY DOROTA GRABKOWSKA }

"What Made Me" is an interactive public installation designed by Dorota Grabkowska together with Kuba Kolec for the Birmingham Made Me Expo 2012 at The Mailbox. 

{ THOUGHTS ON "COMMUNITY" }

Individuals in a community act like the lines in the image. They are the structure of a community, the base, the outline. 

What they create through interacting with each other makes the community unique and interesting. The points at which individuals converge are where they share similitude. 

If everyone goes through the same path, the individual lines would overlap into a same line and leave no space for colors. But if the individuals are so different that they do not converge, colors cannot be filled in as well. 

The balance between diversity and commonness is therefore essential to create a vibrant community.