A&D ANNUAL 2021
WINNER OF THE TWT EXCELLENCE PRIZE
WINNER OF THE TWT EXCELLENCE PRIZE
(Melon) Yiou Yang
Melon Yiou Yang's research project tackles the invisible patriarchal norms in design for universal standardisation using a speculative critical design approach. Men's body scale and form are used extensively as the standard in product design as demonstrated in medical personal protective equipment (PPE) or the size of smartphones. As a result, these material realities are seen as normal by the public. Therefore, this research project hopes to evoke public gender awareness towards this systematic issue by situating the audience in a plausible speculative future using two design outcomes ‘Xenoform’ and ‘Estrogen Machine’. ‘Xenoform’ is an animation drawing using postmodernist author Donna Haraway's cyborg thinking in 'A Cyborg Manifesto' as a theoretical basis to expand the speculative scenario of 'what-if' situations. The narrative of ‘Xenoform’ is scoped on a cyborg character's body to convey the invisible patriarchal norms in the fictional body. ‘Estrogen Machine’ is a design fiction functioning as an agency that preserves the female body's processes using sex hormones as a technical mediation to expand rigid patriarchal norms. These two design outcomes work reciprocally to lead the audience through an imaginative scenario connecting to the invisible patriarchal norms in design.
DegreeBachelor of Design (Honours)DisciplineCeramics, Environments/Spatial DesignInstagram@melon_designerEmailyangyiouyyo@gmail.com