Ashley ShenThesis 1. Fall 2011. 10/17/2011 UploadFaculty: Julia Wargaski

Mind Maps

Mind Maps

As part of my preliminary research, I conducted a series of f ilmed interviews with various individuals about the notion of home - what it is, where it is, why?

Here are some of the insights gathered:

• Home, for a lot of people, is not physical place - but rather a feeling, or a person

• For many, home is where family is

• For others, home is just a feeling of comfort or freedom

• Canaplacebehome,ifyoudon’tunderstandtheculturethere?Orspeakthelanguage?

-S: My boyfriend is French, and lives in Paris, and I want to believe that home is where the

heart is, but language is such an important factor. How can Paris feel like home and be

home, if I can’t speak French? I’ll always feel like a foreigner, a tourist, never a Parisian.

• Locals vs. foreigners

- In Shanghai, there’s an “international bubble” - when people say Shanghai is home, it ’s

not the city itself, but the international community in Shanghai that’s home. A home

within a home.

• Why do people come to New York?

Concerns

• Had a lot of problems getting people to meet with me and be filmed - a lot of questions that I’m

asking look for answers that are too personal to share, much less be recorded

• Bias - obviously, I know a lot of people from Shangai and Asia, so maybe all their notions of home

are more or less similar. How hard will it be to ensure that I get a variety of perspectives? Make

sure I represent diversity?

• Is documentary the only medium I want to explore? How can it translate to other forms?

Other

• Explore cultural identity in relation to other topics?

• The role cultural identity has played in design?

• Comparing cities

Concept 1: ResearchWhat is Home?

I realized after my first presentation, that a common thread that ran through most the things that I’m inspired by - urban spaces, crowds, food, music festivals, etc. - is this idea of people coming together, as well as a fascination with the micro within the macro.

Looking through a lot of my past work, I realized that this idea of the micro within the macro is actually something that I’ve consistently explored in my work, (i.e. my book design project TheCollectiveMind,TheCreativeIndividual-this idea of the individual, the micro, vs. the collective, the macro) which speaks to my interests in cultural enclaves/neighborhoods in cities, the psychology of crowds, etc.

WhyamIfascinatedbythis?I guess that’s hard to answer, but maybe it has to do with my struggle to define my own identity within the frameworks of... a very traditional family? what I want to do with design? society? I don’t know.

Having said that, how can I tie in my interest in stories, personal narratives, etc with this notion of the individual vs. the collective? Now thinking about it, I guess the two are inherently linked. I think what I really want to do is to collect stories and use the power of storytelling, to form some sort of narrative - an overrarching narrative that I may not know what is right now, but that will perhaps emerge somewhere further along in my process - to help individuals connect with other individuals, to show how people are dif ferent and at the same time all the same, in order for individuals to perhaps gain a better understanding of themselves through other people. After all, we, as humans, are all more or less connected by this desire to define ourselves. (Truth?)

I think the key is to figure out what exactly I want to ask people, how I want to ask it (which will greatly af fect the responses I get back), and the form my final project will take. Maybe it ’s a collection of documentary shorts aggregated on an interactive website? I also want to take the information that I gather and visualize it in an information graphic of some sort.

Concept 2: Brainstorm???

InspirationTIME: Beyond 9/11. Portraits of Resilience

InspirationStory Corps

“StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Ameri-cans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives...We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, strengthen and build the connections between people, teach the value of listening, and weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that every life matters. At the same time, we will create an invaluable archive of American voices and wisdom for future generations.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_harris_tells_the_web_s_secret_stories.htmlhttp://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_harris_collects_stories.html

InspirationThe Work of Jonathan Harris

InspirationFeltron