Pattern Design

Initial Concept

When was the last time you felt happy? What kind of happiness touches you deep inside? How do you regulate your tension, manage your behavior and overcome stress and diffifficulties? Do you have the capacity to adjust your emotions in a timely manner in interpersonal relationships, to express your inner needs but also to be inclusive and empathetic to others? Actually, happiness is everywhere in the minutiae of life. For instance, negative emotions and happiness work together. If we face them positively, manage them and use them to our advantage, they can become our guides to real happiness. In addition, a simple and neglected activity can also have the potential to develop into happiness that has deep meaning and significant value for us. Or even just expressing and sharing personal experiences and stories with others can find traces of happiness in them. The project present an immersive space, organized into chapters through installation design, multimedia applications, performance and interaction. I expect my project to contain people's perceptions of happiness in a broad sense, with a helping hand but respecting the destiny and choices of others. The project itself acts as a catalyst for emotions, a medium for awakening memories and a bridge for communication, which will guide the participants and the creators themselves step by step towards the depths of their hearts, capturing and stimulating the potential fragments of happiness that exist there.

Email: jieminglan1@gmail.com

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In this creative process, I served as the texture designer, working from the keywords and information provided by the curator. The curator extracted glittering fragments from the interviewees' responses, which became the inspiration for my design sketches. I also assisted in guiding the curator through the fabric transformation process. The final artwork utilised various fabrication techniques, with the main materials being wool, silk ribbon, wool felt balls, monk cloth, non-woven fabric, and some special lace. I was inspired by the combination of these materials, using my imagination and empathy for the words to improvise and create. Throughout the creation process, the curator and I jointly reconstructed these fragments of happiness, which constitutes the second part of our project. The third layer of processing comes from the audience's associations when they view our tufting patterns. Depending on their imagination, these designs evoke all sorts of memories, and we, in turn, imbue them with additional meanings. From my experience, I believe that fabric transformation is a direction worth pursuing in depth. Tufting is currently a popular trend, but to stand out amidst a sea of designers' ideas, I need to integrate and expand the range of materials used, discover the diversity of these materials, and learn more about weaving techniques. This project has not only allowed me to explore the potential of different materials but also made me realise that every detail in pattern design can bring new inspiration and possibilities. I hope the audience can feel the emotions and stories behind these fragments of happiness through our work.

Eudaimonia

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Architectural Association, London, UK, 2023

In collaboration with Bronte Adelman, Canqi Lin, Chang Cai, Changhao Chen, Charon Hu, Chufan Chen, Cloud Peng, Freda Lai, Hanssi Li, Lin He, Luoyi Xu, Neo Nie, Ri Su, Serena Thomas, Shiyuan Chen, Yao Lu, Ying Wang, Yuji Liu Special Thanks to Heiko Kalmbach, Will Fausset, Robert Busher, Bill Hudson, Trevor Hewett, Ri Su, Yishen Yang, Yuji Liu, Guoqiang Xu, Zhan Lu, Tianyuan Zheng, Zhaoyang Zhang, Lin He, Luoyi Xu

When we feel pain, allergies or fever in our body, we use the corresponding medicine to make ourselves feel better. What about when we feel emotionally uncomfortable? How can we soothe, release and transform our emotions? As the theme of the project is related to emotions, creating visuals with colours and graphics can be used as a trigger to lead the audience to associate with their own experiences. The illustrator created the work inspired by words extracted from the interviewees' experiences and based on research on emotional patterns and colors. Each illustration is accompanied by a poem describing an emotional scene. The aim of this section is to encourage people to face their emotions, to learn to feel the fluctuations of their emotions and to become more aware of themselves. Time, healthy relationships and expression can help people to relieve negative emotions and we don't always have to force ourselves to digest them alone, but to find the suitable way to relieve them.