Central, Old Victoria Prison
Once a friend told me that he wanted to buy an old-style hospital bed for his home because they were charmingly minimal and practical. I thought he was mad. Why would you want to live with something from a place associated with illness and pain? Wandering through the disused cells of Victoria Prison, a charmingly minimal and practical corner table catches my eye. Now you may think I am mad. Why would I want to live with something from a place associated with confinement and punishment?
Outside the eery confined prison walls, this table could sit quite innocently with a vase of flowers perched atop in a simple domestic interior. Context is everything. As time passes, the table will gather memories and create a new story. All objects tell a story, but as with all good stories the plot develops and changes. Maybe my friend was not so mad after all.
Man Xing Village
Sitting with HanYan’s family on their front porch, I find myself in admiration of their naturally creative Dai way of life. She is making a pouch, her father is building their new house’s toilet, and her granddad is making a bamboo container while at the same time supervising my first attempt at bamboo weaving.
Before her kind invitation to lunch (which comprised of vegetables and meats they had themselves grown and reared), I had passed by an elderly lady weaving at a loom in her front room, and met her neighbours Dai grandpa and grandma who were in the process of making bark paper for their traditional oiled-paper umbrellas.
Creating and making was everywhere you looked. We sat on bamboo stools her granddad had constructed, ate oranges off a table he had woven, refilled our rice bowls from an old bamboo pot her ancestors had made. The women wore beautiful tops and skirts they had instructed to be tailored in the style and fabric of their choice. For this community, creativity is not an occupation reserved for professionals, but for everyone as an integral part of life. In modern society, designers are always looking for ways to create bonds between user and products to prolong the life-cycles of objects and reduce excess consumption. The process of designing and making cannot help but create a strong attachment to the final outcome because of the thought and time required. It makes me think, perhaps it is time that more of us stopped buying our lives pre-made in shops and instead created them for ourselves.
Yongding County
Shenyuan Tulou (深远楼)
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