Add Archives and Field Measurements
Based on my tutor’s feedback, I developed a subtitle for my personal project—Design Answers Rural—to explain and expand my exhibition title, Peripherial Future. I also created a poster.
Based on the lectures and pre-class readings, I believe my project requires an archive. This is because I can use archive to present my personal observations of the current state of rural China—historical information that is often lost or displaced[1].
I plan to adopt a “radical care” archival approach[2]. I will incorporate my own photographic and interview materials, shot in Huge village, rural Hebei, China, into the exhibition. This will allow audiences to empathize with the residents and deeply understand my exhibition concept. I anticipate setting up the exhibition using table and chair（accessible facility）; the estimated costs include table and chair rental at Summerhall (0), printing costs (0), and the purchase of photo albums (￡5 in kind). I will place the photographs I took during my fieldwork and the texts obtained from interviews with locals in an album for visitors to browse. With tables and chairs provided, I believe interested visitors will be encouraged to explore my archives.
[1] Hal Foster, ‘An Archival Impulse’ in October Vol. 110 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 4, The MIT Press In the first instance archival artists seek to make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present. To this end they elaborate on the found image, object, and text, and favor the installation format as they do [2] Alasdair Gray Archive – a generative ‘living’ archive – curated through ‘radical care’ by Custodian Sorcha Dallas Sorcha Dallas chose the title of Custodian because she believes caring, and relationship building is central to creating an equitable resource and a horizontal community. This is a feminist approach to archiving called radical empathy, which is the “ability to understand and actively consider another person's point of view in order to connect more deeply with them.”
At Summerhall, I used tape and a tape measure to measure and arrange the artwork. I raised concerns about the installation’s placement; I noticed that positioning it in the center would block two walls, so I moved it to a corner where it would not obstruct the audience’s movement or block the walls.
For long-form video art installations, I proposed adding a chair as an accessible facility for viewers who have difficulty staying standing continuously. After consulting with Yufan, I selected a 19-inch monitor available for rental from ECA for my video installation.
In this week’s collective task assignment, I volunteered to create the captions for artworks. I am responsible for editing and refining the text submitted by everyone, as well as finding high-resolution images of the corresponding artworks and researching their detailed dates, materials, and dimensions.
Caption for collective exhibition
