Intercultural Design // Project 1
04/01/21 - 22/01/21 / Week 1 - Week 4
Ibrahim Fazal Ahmad / 0337423
Intercultural Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylors University
Project 1: Proposal
Project 1: Proposal
LECTURES
WEEK 1
There is Netnography and Etnography. - Etnography - A study of people in real life on-site. Talking to them and gathering information. Try to understand them as best they can.
- Netnography - Like etnography but online instead, an extension of etnography.
WEEK 2
- Etnography - A study of people in real life on-site. Talking to them and gathering information. Try to understand them as best they can.
- Netnography - Like etnography but online instead, an extension of etnography.
In today's class, we had two guest lecturers come in and give us a talk about their crafts. The first being Mr Tintoy, the creator of Fusion Wayang Kulit. Wayang Kulit is a traditional art form here in Malaysia, also known as shadow puppetry in English. We learned that there are many different cultures that also practice shadow puppets. His idea was the fusion of more modern characters, with the beautiful designs of Wayang Kulit. He shows us different examples of his creations, how he looks at different characters from traditional stories and incorporates theirs with modern characters such as Darth Vader. This process is an example of assimilation, as he incorporates different elements from different cultures into a new cohesive idea. Though he did mention that there was bound to be backlash from people claiming he is ruining the traditions.
Secondly, we had Ms Natasha who sadly could not join us for a physical lecture. She gave us a lecture on her company of batik designs named Gahara Batik by recorded lecture on YouTube. All of the designs are hand made block print batik designs.
WEEK 3
This week we were joined by guest lecturers Mr Munir and Dr Emelia who shared their experiences and tips throughout their work.
Mr Munir gave us an interesting talk about his experiences through different countries during his years working. He said that studying a countries history is extremely important when working with them. He discussed about colour and its signifance very heavily. Saying that colours hold many meanings depending which country you go to, this is very important when creating work for them as you need to be appropriate when choosing them to ensure that you are choosing a colour that is not inappropriate.
Mr Munir gave us an interesting talk about his experiences through different countries during his years working. He said that studying a countries history is extremely important when working with them. He discussed about colour and its signifance very heavily. Saying that colours hold many meanings depending which country you go to, this is very important when creating work for them as you need to be appropriate when choosing them to ensure that you are choosing a colour that is not inappropriate.
Dr Emelia gave us a lecture on cultural studies after Mr Munir. She also discussed with us the difficulties that we as artists face, such as art block and procrastination. She also gave some great advice which is to enjoy what we do as artists and to stop being afraid of potential judgements.
INSTRUCTIONS:
WEEK 1
Today was our first class on Intercultural Design!. We met with our lecturers, all familiar faces. This class is a mixed class between semester 1.5 and 2.5 students of BDCM along with a few other degrees if I'm not wrong. We ran through what we will be doing this semester and our assignments. We were sadly meant to go overseas, however, due to the pandemic worsening we have to continue online classes. We had a lecture by Dr Charles on netnography.
We will need research problems, objectives and questions. This is quite similar to Design Research and Methodology from Semester 2. We will also need a rationale from 150-200 words.
Our group had a few ideas, but nothing set in stone. We were exploring the ideas on Maori or Hellenistic cultures, along with the idea of Asian and Western fusion. But for the most part, we were rather lost on how to approach this with a very unique idea. Here is our idea brainstorming on Padlet.
Figure 1: Padlet
WEEK 2
We have decided finally on Cypriot culture, as Meiling showed us Lefkaritika and we were all intrigued by it. We have done more research into different aspects of Cypriot culture, as we all chose as an individual part of it and did research. I did research on the woodworking art they have there. Here is the document that has everything compiled:
Figure 1.1: Cyprus Crafts Research
WEEK 3
After choosing multiple aspects of Cyprus culture, we were told to choose one specific aspect and focus upon it for our research. Lefkaritika was our initial starting base for this whole idea, and we all agreed
it was the most interesting topic for our project that we chose it for our topic.
Here is our research conducted on Lefkaritika:
WEEK 4
We then presented our ideas that we had compiled as a presentation for our lecturers. We shortened our presentation to only fit the relevant data we had compiled on this.
Figure 1.2: Proposal Presentation (Condensed)
After our feedback we did some sketches for the ideas. I did the zine sketches shown below:
Figure 1.3: Zine sketch done by me
Here is our final presentation:
Figure 1.4: Proposal Presentation (Full)
FEEDBACK:
Week 1: We were told that we need to state our reason for choosing the topic and culture with good reasoning behind our actions. Make sure there is enough data.
Week 2: Our topic is too broad and we should try focusing on something more specific. Possibly change our theme from preservation to assimilation. Open up the audience and show them what is interesting in Cyprus culture.
Week 3: Refine our research questions and do more research on the history of the traditions. Mr Asrizal also suggested to define some characteristics and explore how we can introduce this craft in a interesting way.
Week 4: After our presentation, we were told that we need to careful with how we go about this. To be as respectful to the tradtion as possible, as it is very foreign to us. We need to treat it with respect and make sure we dont overstep any boundaries.
REFLECTIONS:
Experience: This module has been pretty confusing for me personally. Though there is more direction towards the end of Project 1, it was a very rocky road getting here. My groupmates and I were rather confused on which direction we should head for, along with not knowing exactly what was needed. Though in the end thanks to Meiling, we decided on Cypriot culture.
Observation: I noticed this module was rather difficult to conduct online. It heavily involves going to other places and experiencing their culture but sadly that wasn't possible. I also learned in great depth about Cyprus and its crafts. It is a very interesting country with rich culture and I am glad we got to see just a glimpse of it through the internet.
Findings: A lot of findings were made for me. Personally I hadn't been very familiar with Cyprus until this project. So learning about their cultures and crafts was very interesting. I found Lefkaritika and their woodkworking to be the most interesting. They have very intricate designs in their woodworking pieces, all of which have symbols that hold meaning. Lefkaritika was also very intruiging as it is considered a dying craft by many there, the designs looked familiar to me. Making me realise their designs could be manufactured by other companies and many people do not know their true origins.
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