This video records the creative process of these embroiders when they are empowered as artists and presents their final works.
# AC Realisation # AC Process # AC Enquiry
Gallery
Group photo of the creators （One was absent）
The name of each creator is marked with a blue sticker
Translation: Striving for the idealPenguin HandThe Girl’s Back
A representative crop of Hunan embroidery: Tiger’s Paw
Leopard’s PawTranslation: Filial piety is the most important of all virtues.
Peacock Hand
Translation: Creating a better life with a passion for fireGoldfish hand
The following was established：
Theme: The Temperature of the Hand
Number of participants: 10 embroiderers （aged between 47-55 women）
Forms of intervention ：event-based intervention
Cooperation：JEM, Changsha Xiang Embroidery Research Institute.
Event Duration：28-30 Oct 2022.
Test subjects 1: 10 embroiderers （Feedback after embroidering their own hands through the free use of their imagination）
Test subjects 2: Consumers (test why they would or would not buy this hand-embroidered canvas bag with hands)
What to do：Seven embroiderers use their imagination to embroider their own hands on canvas bags.
How to buy：Sold separately at JEM and the Changsha Institute of Hunan Embroidery.
Money sold for：The price of this canvas bag will be returned to the embroiderers with all the remaining profit after removing their corresponding labour and costs.
Through a friend’s introduction, we met a brand manager at Li Ning, and through our conversation we thought we could experiment with clothing combined with Hunan embroidery.
Content of cooperation projects
Li Ning basketball jacket design
The design is from Li Ning
In addition to the use of Hunan embroidery in our products, we also hope to pick up some footage of embroiderers and material that can be used later on by both Li Ning and then Red Hunan Embroidery to better introduce Hunan and Hunan embroidery to consumers.
Steps of cooperation: design finalisation – sample development – sample testing – contract signing – order placement – production
The company says that due to the current schedule of embroiderers, it is expected to start receiving production in December. Li Ning said that they would first make 4-5 pieces to see the effect of the samples.
I will ask each embroidery creator to comment on how their work differs from the previous ones in terms of steps and ideas, strengths and weaknesses, etc. Evidence will be recorded in the form of chat notes.
The intervention “melding embroidery” took place on August 18 and August 21 at Camden Lock Market and Brick Lane Market respectively. To attract stakeholders to participate in the intervention, I prepared 12 embroidered bookmarks to give away. The two interventions each lasted two hours and the total number of stakeholders was 12. By asking as well as handwritten feedback on sticky notes.
Intervention in Cameden Lock Market
A Londoner of Turkish origin is participating in the “melding embroidery”
The total number of participants at Camden lock maket was 7, with 4 local stakeholders from the UK, 2 from South America and 1 from Europe. When I asked them whether they thought the embroidered bookmark or the “melding experiment” was better, they all said the latter was better, but I will be looking for their suggestions on user experience and how the project can be improved.
Colleceting Feedback in Cameden Lock Market
Advice from this Londoner of Turkish origin
This stakeholder stated that when he touched the crocodile clips, sometimes the feedback was not quick , which made the experience less friendly for him, and he suggested that I could use other materials or other way to make the experience better . When I asked this feedback to other stakeholders, some of them agreed, so this is a breakthrough and an area for improvement.
At the same time, several stakeholders in South America and Europe said that the appearence of this “melding experiment” could be made more elegant and beautiful.
Intervention in Brick Lane Market
Local grandpa and lady from London are giving feedback
When I asked the grandfather ，an embroidered bookmark or the “melding expeiment” he experienced, which one is better . he said that the embroidered bookmark was the past and the latter was the future. At the same time, his advice was “the future is made important” because of the age of the stakeholder, and I appreciate his encouragement!
A CSM’s BA architecture graduate from the UK is giving feedback
The alumna said she was surprised by this interactive experience, while the advice she gave was that it could with graphics.
Conclusion
This intervention enriched the diversity of the data sources I collected in terms of race, age, and occupation, while most of the suggestions they gave were mutually agreeable, so I will take some time to anaylze the feedback collected for the evaluation.
The intervention of this project is an artifact-based intervention that receive the reactions and respones of stakeholders through works that combine Chinese embroidery and technology.
Feedback and adjustments from the August 8 tutorial
After a Tutoria with Richard on August 8, he suggested that I should try to contact Embroidery Magazines as well as Craft Council, I have sent them an email and am waiting for their response. on the other hand, I have to narrow down my stakeholders from people who don’t know about Chinese embroidery specifically to people who are interested in Chinese embroidery or even embroidery, or even people who are willing to buy embroidery, which was really helpful and made it easier and faster when I did the intervention.
I will split into online and offline intervention. The online intervention is by sending short videos，posts to social platforms. Offline interventions involve stakeholders personally participating in my interactive work and getting feedback through both forms.
Online intervention
For this online intervention, I posted videos of my work to TIKTOK (with the embroidery hashtag attached), and to REDDIT’s digital embroidery community.
Feedback from TIKTOK
The work has received a total of 652 likes and 17 comments on tiktok.Basically most of the feedback was that it was great and ask me that how I did it. It was hard for me to get progress on this intervention on tiktok because it was all met with good feedback.
Posting in the Digitized Embroidery CommunityFeedback from the digitized embroidery community
This feedback was really helpful, as this poster shared the FBk design and his thoughts on electroluminescent wire and sound interaction! I’ll go ahead and research what FBk design is and his ideas.
Offonline intervention
I chose the location of this offline intervention in China Town because I thought there were lots of people and interested in Chinese culture.
I created a “Free Chinese Embroidery” poster to try to attract the attention of my stakeholders, who would not be attracted if they were not my stakeholders, and then planned to invite them to do my intervention when I attracted them.
A Singaporean who said he agreed to be video-recorded
Luckily, the Singaporean, who is an engineer, said there was nothing special about this work for him, as well as he suggested whether I could replace the crocodile clips with needles, a conductive metal material, and then trigger different sounds or change the color of the thread through the audience’s own actions of threading the needle. It was a bit of a hit, but it was a source of progress. I will look into the implementability of this idea!
It is worth mentioning that the offline intervention was held from 10.30 am to 12 am on 13th August，a total of 10 stakeholders were attracted from this intervention, 9 of whom were come form China, Singapore, Taiwan and the remaining one was Pakistani.
This experiment is using the way of nonlinear processes on my project, this theory based on the book »Prototyping Interfaces, it introduces me to vvvv, Arduino, tracking methods and display technologies in an understandable way. Building on top of that, it opens new dimensions for my creativity, through many practical examples and the endless possibilities of prototyping.
The design process in interaction is becoming a complex equation with so many variables that I have to keep experimenting, making mistakes, iterating and testing!
The purpose of “Melding experiment” is to try to interact with the embroidery as much as possible using whatever tools I could, which are aiming towards a creative and disruptive goal, that is not exactly defined at the beginning.
Reserved assumption: “Chinese embroidery can make the viewer be an active participant”
Tools
Makey Makey Board
USB Cable
Alligator Clips
Connector Wires
Plug&play apps
Discarded Chinese Embrodiery
How
Alligator clip to embroidery, When I touch it, the computer thinks I’m pressing the keyboard.
Chanllenge
What are other ways viewers can interact with the Chinese embroidery?
Can I use the sounds with other media such as animation?
Can I create a program that triggers sounds only when the keys on embroidery are pressed?
Biblioraphy
Barth, J., 2013. Prototyping interfaces. Mainz: Hermann Schmidt, pp.2-4.
# AC Realisation # AC Process # AC Knowledge # AC Enquiry
“Melding experiment” is a experiment testing through combine the embroidery and technology together
I worked with a programmar in the first “melding experiment”, used a piece of ready-made Chinese embroidery to be the sample of this intervention.
The original Chinese embroidery
We have a discussion before this experiment, we talked about what sensors can be added in and why used these kind of sensors.
“Melding experiment”
Tools:
Mp3 player
Arduino Uno
MPR121 touch sensor board
Conductive fiber line
speaker(4 ohm 3 watt)
Crane sounds by touching embedded conductive fiber wires that have been connected to touch sensor board and speakers
The reason why we use touch sensor + sound is to hope that participants can touch the Chinese embroidery to feel the emotion behind the embroidery（Embroidery art work has always been looked up by the audience, we hope it can be closer to people）, andtouch the surface of the piece, such as touching a crane, it will stimulate the sound of the crane, and touching flowers and grass can make the sound of forest appear, thereby creating an emotional connection between the embroidery artworks with audience by technology.
On Thursday I’ll be organizing an expert meeting with this demo to get feedback and set the direction for my project.
# AC Enquiry # AC Knowledge # AC Process # AC Realisation
This blog explores the way of interesting recreate Chinese traditional embroidery(Xiang embroidery) to a younger generation
by Jiang Chang | Apr.19.2022
My mom Jiang Zaihong (second from left), a national-level Chinese arts and crafts master of Hunan embroidery, teaches embroidery skills to young foreigners
Chinese traditional craftsmen are determined to pass down their ‘skills’ to the younger generation without realising the importance of cultivating freedom of expression, creativity and innovation; therein lies its biggest challenge.
British Coucil Creative Economy
Because of my family background, as a Chinese who has been in touch with the traditional Chinese embroidery (Xiang embroidery) industry since childhood, a youth of the world as well, I think that by making traditional Chinese embroidery interesting and integrated into modern life, it helps to improve cultural and crafting sustainability and cultural diversity.
The stakeholders
The stakeholders of this theme are craftsmen of traditional embroidery such as Jiang Zaihong, she can serve as a professional embroidery technical guide in this project.
“The Lion”Jiang Zaihong’s personal embroidery work
Gan Sheng who is the Director of Changsha Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, He can help and guide me on the social significance and effectiveness of the project from a government perspective in this project.
Professor Yu Binxia, a research librarian and embroidery committee expert of Hunan Museum, and as a professional embroidery curator, she stands from a more academic and professional perspective to make the content of this project more academic, more formal and more contemporary with exhibition significance.
The organizations are Changsha Xiang Embroidery Research Institute, Changsha Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center，Changsha Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Association, and Hunan Jiang Zaihong Embroidery Art Museum, These institutions and museums stated that they can provide professional embroidery personnel and other inheritors of intangible cultural heritage， as well as publicity and exhibitions on their platforms for this project.
Interviews
When I communication with them about my topic, they look forward to it and agree with it and give some suggestion about the direction of this topic. Jiang Zaihong said that as a representative inheritor of Hunan embroidery of national intangible culture, she is desire to see new ideas, new designs, new art forms and new commercial market of Hunan embroidery presented in traditional embroidery. Jiang Zaihong hopes to see more people give Hunan embroidery fresh vitality without losing the traditional embroidery craftsmanship. Focus on contemporary art forms to reinvigorate traditional culture, revitalize the embroidery market, and ultimately achieve the purpose of inheritance.
Introduction of Xiang embroidery
Gan Sheng, mentioned that making traditional culture interesting is not only on the surface, but also needs to be integrated into the life of modern people, adding uses to these traditional embroidery crafts while keeping it interesting, such as in furniture, studyware etc, so that they can use it and attractive to it.
In addition, I also discussed the future direction of China’s intangible cultural heritage with Professor Yu Binxia, She said that since I am the curator of Hunan Jiangzaihong Embroidery Museum, I can do Some projects of contemporary art practice based on craftsmanship, with cross-cultural approach, as she said that there is rarely exhibition about embroidery handicrafts with contomporary art, she hopes I can try it, through expressing new values to audiences about intangible cultural heritage dialogue and communication, instead of emphasizing academicity like traditional museums and instilling ideas into the audience
Intervention
After got information from preliminary , I decided to do some changes from photography and artefacts on this theory, about the performance of integrating into contemporary art forms and experiments in changing the original materials.
A experiment in the transformation of contemporary expressive art
a experiment to change its material and increase its use such as Bookmarks, rings, keycaps, etc. (using material: Eco Exposy resin)
It is worth affirming that by changing the original material, I got a different feeling for embroidery, which also affirmed my determination to continue to change. However,When I read the papers and articles of recreating and reinventing traditional art, I especially agree one opinion of Dr. Maria Huhmarniemi, an artist and a teacher in the University of Lapland, that is learning traditional skills and applying them in contemporary art comprise an influential method when striving for cultural sustainability, I felt that the changes of xiang embroidery I made in the past were still need to be improved (see the below picture). From the pictures, it can be seen that it is still in a level of appearence, I inneed to really touch embroidery, understand the process of embroidery, so as to change and innovate it.
learning traditional skills and applying them in contemporary art comprise an influential method when striving for cultural sustainability.
Dr. Maria Huhmarniem
Conclusions
I intend to use art-based action research as a strategy, and in my research on the sustainability of the craft, I need to learn traditional embroidery craft techniques and methods, the use of materials and tools. As a boy who has never touched embroidery, it was a challenge for me because I needed to overcome my male chauvinism and learn embroidery skills quickly. But I believe that if I overcome the gender stereotypes of traditional embroidery craftsmanship, not only can I break the gender gap in traditional culture, but I can also participate in interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogues between communities and other groups as a young craftsman, a dialogue formed through craftsmanship.
# AC Knowledge # AC process #AC Communication #AC realisation
Bibliography
News.cgtn.com. 2022. China attempts to save traditional art of Su Embroidery. [online] Available at: <https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774d3463444d78457a6333566d54/index.html> [Accessed 19 April 2022].
Huhmarniemi, M., 2018. Crafting Sustainability: Handcraft in Contemporary Art and Cultural Sustainability in the Finnish Lapland. [online] Lacris.ulapland.fi. Available at: <https://lacris.ulapland.fi/ws/files/6111304/sustainability_10_01907.pdf> [Accessed 17 April 2022].
Forbes. 2020. Japanese Visionary Women BrandVoice: Innovations Incorporating Traditional Japanese Crafts Into Modern Life. [online] Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/japanesevisionarywomen/2020/11/18/innovations-incorporating-traditional-japanese-crafts-into-modern-life/?sh=22692c5c1d13> [Accessed 16 April 2022].
East.co.uk. 2020. Reinventing Traditional Craft. [online] Available at: <https://www.east.co.uk/blogs/journal/reinventing-traditional-craft> [Accessed 18 April 2022].
Medium. 2018. The future of traditional Chinese Crafts. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/making-as-national-transformation/the-future-of-traditional-chinese-crafts-a9cc71026dc3> [Accessed 16 April 2022].
