Problem
After I came to the United States, my mother and I experienced the best period of our relationship in nearly five years, which made me very optimistic about our mother-daughter relationship. However, this year we experienced a serious breakdown in our relationship, which made me feel disappointed and anxious again. Therefore, I began to reexamine and reflect on our relationship in different ways. But until now, neither of us has found a way to reconcile.
Concept
Overall, this is a very personal project, in which I aim to explore the complexity of my relationship with my mother. As part of this project, I have designed a board game called “Find a Way to Hug”, where a mother and her children in an alternate universe must constantly explore the board, encountering traps and opportunities, until they find each other. Another component is an installation art piece called “Ah Nan”, in which I critically examine our fraught mother-daughter relationship. These two projects have been developed almost simultaneously, which has allowed me to constantly shift between fantasy and reality, positivity and critique.
Find a Way to Hug (Board Game)
Tiles
Special Tiles
Character Pieces
SLA 3D Printing
Tokens
Acrylic, SLA 3D Printing
Prototype
Acrylic, SLA 3D Printing
Posters
阿囡 Ah Nan （Installation）
The word “囡”（Nan）in Chinese means a little girl, and from its character form, it depicts a girl surrounded by a boundary. My initial concept for “Ah Nan“ was to create a uterus that connects me and my mother. The uterus is painful and suffering, while shattered mirrors in the uterus would reflect the individual who inherits all of her traumas. Unlike ”Find a Way to Hug“, ”Ah Nan“ is more direct and cutting.
Interestingly, sometimes while creating her, I also saw her as my daughter, my little girl.
Material: Yarn, Foam, Cardboard, Mirror
