Zi Ying Lee
The House of Plum Blossom
Growing up in a typical Chinese household, values and strict teachings are passed down from generations. Just like any traditional Chinese families, we had well-defined roles for different family members. As much as my family remains tight-knit, we have never openly shown affection to one another. “I love you” might be one of the most important combinations of three words in the western language. A signal that a romantic relationship is serious, or an indication of closeness. However, growing up, I have never once heard those three words in my household. Documenting through the use of photography and revealing of stories, The House of Plum Blossom dives in to investigate the reality of living in a traditional Chinese household of disguised endearment.
The House of Lee
李(Li) symbolises plum blossom or plum tree, which is one of the beloved flowers in Chinese culture. Plum blossom and tree are often seen in Chinese arts and paintings, symbolising perseverance and hope, as it usually blooms even amidst the harsh winter season. The plum tree can usually grow for a long time, hence it is one of the ancient trees that are found throughout China. In Confucianism, the plum blossom stands for principles and values of virtue.
To See A Bigger Picture
Facts are challenging to find online sometimes because it could be an online report or blog which may be biased with their own opinion. Or that some of these information may be translated wrongly along the way when being spread from one source to another, interpreted differently by various people. Hence, it occurred to me that information that is easily found online are easily manipulated and may not be reliable.
Due to the fact that we rely on these online sources for information with just a few clicks and searches. Hence, it makes me realised that “Do people head down to the library anymore? A place where overflowing information is stored, ranging from fiction to non-fiction, to the large wide amount of topics covered across history. And why should people go to the library instead of online sources? The library collection tends to be more reliable and of higher quality than those information resources found freely available online. Libraries respect history. Link rot is a real problem, thus the content of library collections is much more stable. Library sources help you sort the real news from the fake, as they are being curated and reviewed before it is being placed in the library itself. The word trust comes in place due to the reliability of sources. As mentioned previously, online sources could run out one day and are easily altered. Even online images could be manipulated just to fit into a certain content.
Poster
As the campaign aims to portray how our generations trust the information that is being presented and told by others online easily. Thus the idea shows how various online personas could manipulate readers to think differently with the use of misleading headline and altered imageries. As we do not often question where these sources come from, we subconsciously just trust and believe what is being posted there, thus gaining a wrong form of facts and beliefs.
Interactive Bus-stop Ads
As my targeted audiences are students, in order to captivate their attention, there would also be interactive bus stop ads to encourage the audiences to interact with it. It is done to advocate the idea of how easy it is to being able to manipulate certain parts of the imagery to create a different side of the story.
