A collage of my starter kit presents the items I used, I carried, I inspired, and I created, it explores my experiences, background, identities, memories, creations, skills, and values.
Sketchbook
– to fill with design concepts, mind maps, and doodlings
Sharpie
– to draw up my ideas
Tote bag
– to alternate the use of plastic bag when doing grocery
Daily planner
– to schedule my to-do-list and timetable
Sewing thread
– to repair my textile
A wooden card with laser cut
– to visualize the passing of times
– to present the material I enjoyed using
Passport
– to explore the world
– to accept other cultures
A 3D print I prototyped before
– to turn digital data into tangible object
– to appreciate the evolutive of technology
A piece of leaf I picked up from the garden
– to represent where my inspiration comes from
– to interact with nature
Key chain I brough it in Vancouver at the first day I arrived
– to appreciate my seven-years’ experience in Canada
Air pod
– to isolate from the outsiders
Industrial mask I used in the woodshop
– to product me lungs from dust (I did enjoy making my hand dirty)
My name is Ying Qu, and you can call me Elaine. The following is my introduction to my starter kits, and I am glad to meet you all!
`Plastic bags
I like to collect plastic bags, just as I like to collect all sorts of wild ideas. For me, plastic bags seem to be magical, and they will deeply attract me. No matter which channel I got it from, no matter whether it is beautiful or not, I will silently collect them, waiting for the second opportunity to use them. I think that to protect the earth and achieve sustainability, we can start slowly from these small things. The strength of one person is meagre, and the strength of everyone is huge.
`Tarot cards
This is the tool I use to release myself at this stage of deciding to apply for a school and waiting for the result of the application. For me, I don’t believe in the results of divination, but more to make myself believe in my own decision more firmly, and I believe that my fate is my fate. Tarot divination is like flipping a coin. The moment you throw it, you will have the answer in your heart. It is good at seeing the big from the small, and through the connection between the micro and the macro. Just like my relationship with the world, I believe that my every move will have a linkage relationship like the butterfly effect, which has an impact on the world.
`Aquarius thermos
Maybe it is the reason of the constellation. I am in Aquarius and rely on my vacuum flask and never leave my hands all year round! Maybe you think the vacuum flask will only come in handy in winter, but you would never think that the cooling effect of vacuum flask is also excellent. The working style of the vacuum flask is consistent with my way of thinking. I think: Everything has two sides. We must develop in the unity of opposites. The combination of Yin and Yang is indispensable.
`Headphones
This is my essential partner in life. It allows me to isolate the noise of the world, avoid embarrassment, soothe emotions, settle the mood, and increase the sense of security. I accompany it to listen to the stories in the music, it listens carefully to my heart and accepts everything about me unconditionally. In the face of it, I am willing to share my grievances and unwillingness, and show the truest side in front of it. With it, I am not afraid of being alone, I am not afraid of being alone. It is my bottom line and the greatest strength that supports me. With headphones and music, even if the world abandons me, I am fearless, and I will never give up each other until the end of my life.
`Sky
I like to watch the sky! The sky can give me the deepest and most powerful strength. For me, the sky is a stage, and I am a star, waiting for me to show myself. The sky is a piece of soil, and I am a sapling, waiting for us to take root and grow. The sky is a lighthouse, and I am a small boat, waiting for us to pursue our first dream. Every time I look at the clear sky, I feel happy, very refreshed and relaxed. Looking at the white clouds hanging in the sky, I always feel that whatever I think it is, it will become something, because the cloud itself changes everything. No matter how bored I was with the people and things around me, no matter how lonely and helpless I was at the time, as long as I remember that piece of sky, it is always the most beautiful and pure. Gradually healed the unhappiness in the memory, leaving only the nostalgia and sentiment for his own growth.
`Facial mask
Facial mask is a must in my life. Applying a mask every other day was a habit I made for myself when I was 18, and I have persisted until now. I like to collect all kinds of masks, they always bring me new inspiration. Many people are inspired when they go to the bathroom, and I am applying a facial mask. A small piece of mask paper allows me to sit down to release the pressure of life and enter the most relaxed state.
`Peppermint girl
Friends said, I am a mint girl. It is sweet at the moment of the entrance, and very cool at the end. This is a metaphor for thinking that I was a very emotional person when I first met, and finally found that I was very rational. I don’t like what I owe to others, nor do I like what others owe me. I don’t like to trouble others, nor do I like others to trouble me. I don’t like intrigue, and I don’t like being calculated. Everyone only needs to be responsible to themselves, and life is perfect.
Hey, this is Wenmin Zhang. It’s really thrilled to meet everyone in this course !
This is my Starter Kit, with two parts: Attitude and Necessities. I named them Touch and Feel.
On the left, the starter kit contains soil, leaves, wood and two wooden cup mates. As my undergraduate major is wood furniture and interior design, I mainly choose wood as my starter kit theme, because I think some characteristics of this material are very similar with my attitude to something that I want to do or creative style.
-First: Unique. Not only refers to this material, but also means that all the things created by wood are unique. Just like the two cup mates I showed above, although they have the same function, due to the wood, their color, style, pattern and even touch are completely different, which represents an independent individual.
-Second: Life and Story. Wood is different from plastic or many new materials. It has life and will change, which let me imagine. Whenever I see a wooden product, maybe furniture, building or anything, its patterns, colors and even scars give me enough imagination space to think about its experience and story and feel it. This is also my favorite process.
-Third：Come from nature and eventually return to nature. This is also the most important point, wood is an environment-friendly material, it can bring value without wasting resource and breaking our nature.
All of these are the attitudes and representations of mine, with temperature, stories, sustainable and problem solving. The reason that I also put in the soil and leaves is I hope that we can feel them together and imagine.
On the right, the stater kit contains something I think is essential in course. -A laptop, which contains all the necessary software. A small recording pen, due to the limitation of language, it is very helpful for me to understand the course. A blank notebook with a pen, represents that during the study, I want to learn and explore more things to fill it in.
Finally, thanks to the great weather, the whole starter kit is bathed in the sun, which makes me think it’s a good start, and I hope it can be!
As a painter I speak in the language of color. As a muralist I use color to make the world a more beautiful place. The colors of this color wheel represent the attributes I intend to mix together to paint this journey through the MA in design for social innovation and sustainable futures.
self-portrait ink painting with ink bottles.
please feel free to view my mural and portrait painting portfolio via the link below:
I am Sixing Lyu. I am now in China to take online classes with everyone.I hope that covid-19 will pass soon and communicate with everyone in the classroom.
JOIN THIS COURSE!
There are two reasons why I choose this course. Firstly, I want to find a good business project to bring back to my hometown, to better develop my business. Secondly, I want to have a new environment than before to learn English better, so that I can access more information and chat with other people.
MY STARTER KIT!
When I enter this course, I want to choose my hometown as my starter kit. So, I made a landscape box shaped like a camera. Because of the progress of the times, I do rarely use the camera to take photos. The smart phone can almost get the photos we want, so I often use the smart phone to take my inspiration.
In the last year, I worked in the north of China. It used to be the province with the largest energy consumption of China’s well-known coal mines, but now the resources have been exhausted, so “environment friendly” wind and solar power generation have been chosen. While resources are being consumed, you can see trees all over the mountains here, and in mountainous areas, it has sweet air. It has beautiful landscape, as shown in the outside photo of the box I made. I also took a lot of landscape photos when I was working and sent them to my friends. But while building friendly energy, we are beginning to consume the environment again. The construction brought a lot of rubbish, and the workers piled it up on the hillside.
I put this photo in the inner box. The scenery outside and the trash inside are contradictory, humans and the environment are always competing. But that people’s more positive attitude towards the environment will also make the world better than before.
I made this box to remind myself to look at the two sides of things from an outsider’s perspective, and to keep myself alert to the society around me.
[macbook] I am a digital person. Computer is essential. This mbp will be my companion in the coming days.
[white notebook] Same as the one I used for work, but in clean white. Something familiar but brand new, for recording my new journey.
[basic stationery] Trying to keep things minimal and keep as less as I can.
[masking tapes] In my favourite shades of blue. Prepared for sticking random stuff on my visual diary.
[octopus card] Reminds me of home. A card that is always needed when I was in my hometown.
[clear eraser] A cute invention from Japan. I always appreciate Japanese people’s attention to detail.
[tape measure] A small tool that I used for work, reminds me to be flexible, but still always accurate.
[lucky coin] A 20-cent coin from 1989, which I accidentally found it in my pocket on my departure night, before I said goodbye to my family. Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on one side, because Hong Kong was a British colony at that time. This represents the old Hong Kong where I was born in. A blessing to my life in London.
[typeface] Noiseless 904 is a font I created months ago. This is my first attempt at designing a typeface. Just can’t wait to work on something new, and create things that would amaze myself.
I did a prototype and picked up four daily objects for my starter kit.
The prototype has three pieces in the front with open and closed eye. Three of them together shows mine one blink. Behind that, you can take a glance of the dynamic things happening in my brain. It is my first attempt to make them tangible, like montage, like a storyboard.
As the way I think connected tightly to how I behave, spending time to think about it and trying to visualize it may help my new friends know me easier. That is what I thought when I was making it.
The four objects are all my everyday things. * The Box of the Painkiller Stickers I use this painkiller stickers daily to help with my painful muscles due to scoliosis. I think this could be an excellent metaphor for my empathy and warm part inside. These stickers are gentler than painkiller cream and more frequently used than pills, providing support gradually and silently. Some people like to wear certain perfume, and I sometimes wear this herb smell.
* The Small Screwdriver Kit Screwdriver stands for skills. These kinds of ‘fine screwdriver kits’ usually contains lots of heads. Those heads cover many different aspects, but they are all tiny. Similarly, I may have scraps of information and skills in many aspects, but they may not be so practical. While I am still looking forward to using them one day. And at the same time keep trying and practising.
* The Dog Tail Grass Brooch This brooch stands for my root and the base colour of me. This grass has its common name ‘Dog Tail Grass’ in China, and it grows on the banks of land between the rice fields in my hometown. I was intended to buy a famous strawberry brooch or a flower brooch for myself that day. But I ended up with this dog tail brooch as I found it quite attracting. It gave me a unique, comfortable and natural feeling that I would like to carry with me.
* My AirPods pro The final thing is its AirPods Pro. It stands for the Neverland where I can think about nothing. Taking a breath and get along well with myself values a lot in life. It’s about music, musicals, games etc.
A human who mostly communicates visually and always wonders. My starter kit includes a formula that will guide me with Allah’s grace.
DATE PITS (SEEDS)
Origin — could be a problem, project, idea …
مـنـبـت [the birthplace]
PRAYER MAT
Connection and communication— the word صلاة [prayer] originates from صلة [connection]. It’s a symbol for my faith in Allah and a reminder of a core belief in Islam “Humans are successors on this earth”.
Sketchbook: pages ready to be filled with ideas, designs and inventions
Apple: Health (‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away”) Education: you bring your teacher/s an apple in Western cultures. Sir. Isaac Newton had a moment of clarity – identifying the theory of gravity – when an apple fell on his head from a tree above. Biblical ref: Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
My starter kit is made up of things that give me a sense of comfort and belonging. I have my gratitude journal that reminds me of all the wonderful experiences I have had over time, but also several lessons I’ve learnt from them. I also have some happy polaroid pictures from some of my past travels which give me hope for a better tomorrow. On the canvas tote, I’ve made an abstract version of one of my favourite artworks of all times – The Great Wave of Japan. I’ve always been inspired by this piece as it signifies strength and resilience during tough times. I also have some postcards from friends, some lucky charms and two cute handkerchiefs so I can reduce my usage of paper napkins. Also a pack of playing cards as that’s something we do a lot back home during festivities. Lastly, I have a quote in Sanskrit that my Grandfather fondly taught me. It means we must have strength and courage to find wisdom and balance.
