Designer | Researcher
Project
Beyond the Three - Connect Time
Research｜Social Innovation | Product Design
Cooperated with Xiao Clan Association
( 2020 - 2022 . China)
"Beyond the Three" is a two-year long-term artistic research project that aims to explore the complexity and emotional demands of human relationships based on domestic realities in response to a rapidly changing reality. I will be combing information from my own personal experiences to construct a compelling experience of information in another new form.
Based on my identity as an only child, I am curious about what lies beyond the family of an only child - the research starts from the starting point of a small three-person family, goes back to more than 100 years ago, and looks upwards and downwards to more than 10 generations of clansmen (more than 400 people) that I have never met, and through investigating the traces of eight families that have migrated to the city, and helping senior clansmen to re-construct the genealogy of their families, I will explore the current situation of the survival of the only child in the face of the reduction of childbearing and urbanisation, the separation of clans, and the loss of family culture. The study explores the current situation of one-child survival, inter-family separation, and loss of family culture in the context of child reduction and urbanisation. It also explores how the dispersal and aggregation of Chinese clans may bring about a shift in human emotions and how design as a means of connectivity can play a role in this.
This is the first part of the series "Beyond the Three", which consists of an extensive research record and the design of an emotional product - the clock.
Part 1 Introduction:
This is partly a collaboration with an NGO - the Xiao Clan Association.
The clocks are based on information gathered by Three Men Apart about the lost members of the Xiao family, combining visual narrative and emotional connection through materials and colours. Each clock records common family information and different personal information about the clan members. The aim is to connect the clansmen who are scattered all over the world.
The clock is both The scale is also a token.
Our time makes up the time of the family.
（Clan members Clocks，2021）
（New genealogy，2020-2021）
During the research process, it was not difficult to find that there are still some old people who insist on working for the family in the old way, but they are old and what should be the future of the family?So I've joined the new genealogy job.
It also recorded in these genealogical processes are some of the family cultures that epitomise not only the culture of the Xiao family, but also some of the past of China as a whole, and in part have become important cultural elements that have held the Chinese nation together as part of the shaping of Chinese society, which is well worth examining.
It's not hard to find that problems in the process of compiling the family information - The majority of collector is elderly and the collecting ways are so inefficient... it doesn't serve the function of genealogy itself...
（Some process pics from Research，2020-2021）
Gathering information on the next ten generations of the clan, ten data rings are linked together to form a three-dimensional family tree.
（New Familytree，2020-2021）
（New form of genealogy for ten generations，2020-2021）
（ Detailed Visual Journey，2021）
Special Thanks for
Xinhua News Journalist - Zishu Xiao
Xiao clan association.