Winter 2020 Remote Research
As an initial engagement to my Senior Capstone Project, I am preparing to hold an autobiographical art exhibition to encourage the audience to reflect on self and society as they engage with the artworks that draw metaphors between individuals and flowers. By incorporating the theme of flowers throughout the exhibition based on a timeline of life, I hope to convey the central message “Bloom to your potential.”
Over the winter break, I created artworks based on floriography and garden metaphors in illness. The first work symbolizing “Birth” is titled “Seed Embracing Flowers.” This wire sculpture includes dried rose petals and soap flowers. The flowers inside the seed indicate how individuals hold the potentials to blossom into flowers once they break out of the hard shell. The following artworks range from book art with collage, photography, digital image, to installation art that advocate for the #StayAtHome movement during COVID, organ donation, and search for self-identity. At the end of the timeline, “Death” is represented through “The Giving Tree,” a tree with lights embellished with floral ornaments. At the final stage of my life, I hope to have become a person dedicated to serving others. This piece intends to have the audience take the ornaments upon donating to charity. Once the audience and the charity mutually benefit from the little gifts, the tree would remain with bare branches, having fulfilled its role as the “Giving Tree.” The exhibition will end with the final piece, “You,” a mirror decorated with leaves and butterflies. As the audience gazes at themselves through the work, they will discover the absence of flowers and receive a message that they can bloom into a flower.
I am grateful to have received this grant through which I could purchase materials to begin crafting artworks. I am also thankful to have received inspiration and feedback from my professors, friends, and family. In the upcoming semesters, I will continue to build upon this project. To measure the impact of interactive art, I will develop methods to measure stress-reduction. Until I can hold in-person exhibitions, I will work towards sharing my artwork virtually!
