Utopian Blue Print – Community Drawing Project – Athens, Georgia1

2018, graphite on paper, LEDs,
Microcontroller, participants’ drawings,
H: 23 x 18”/H: 58 x W: 46cm (central piece on the wall); H: 8 x 11” / H: 20 x W: 28cm and letter size (participants’ drawings)

The theme of this project is to create and observe Utopian World as my research project;
the best memories and favourite things of people in each geographical location symbolize
the general notion of identity and ideality, which show the question of
what makes happy life for us? It is like a questionnaire of essential things we wish for a better society. For this project, I invited local people and children to a gallery space or visited their schools/institutions for one-hour drawing workshop, in which I asked them to draw
their favourite memories and things in their lives.
After that, I made drawings of the participants’ doodles re-visualized or reproduced on a mounted paper like collaging each individual’ s image with their stories edited with my interpretation.

I am interested in projects that can be both socially engaged during the making process and
being a journal of actual voices when it becomes a finished piece of work.
The work produced will be a visualization of a utopian blue print, from which we can see
what kind of things we like, and these positive images create the perfect peaceful society – Utopia. The idea of “perfect dream and things” varies depending on the group of people, location and country due to the socio-cultural and political difference.
It is interesting to see how the idea of Utopia differs in each geographical location, and when we gather up everyone’ s emages without considering the border,
the universal perspective of Utopian society emerges.

During the workshop, people enjoyed drawing and also exchange their own stories,
which they do not have opportunities to express, then they can see their participation
in my finished projects. The objective of the act of asking people to participate in this project is not essentially about to teach new knowledge or skill but more likely to have them enjoy art as a communication tool to express their feelings and identities.

Picture: at Athens Institute of Contemporary Art, Athens, GA. Participants in the gallery space and the installation view of the doodles of participants.

Video of the work: