gentle encounters
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Typography, Other...
Designer(s)
Sandy Liang
Duration
30 Weeks
Recognitions
gentle encounters is a pop-up space that explores fleeting moments of prosocial behaviour and how they contribute to our sense of connectedness to others. Using physical space and tactility, it remixes notions of transparency, obstruction, and depth to highlight the significance of brief interactions and transform the space into a catalyst for hopeful and positive memory work through design.
Kindness in ephemera
This project uses design as a vessel of visualization and contribution, turning a database of kindnesses into a piece of reflection and interaction. Since these small moments are so easily forgotten, we sometimes need to jumpstart the memory process and that’s what this space is meant to be; the starting point for people to begin noticing and actively taking part. My research includes texts from scientific communities, psychological studies, social theories, and writings from poets and cultural analysts alike to get a well-rounded definition of what kindness is and how exactly it contributes to both our personal and public lives. I also conducted my own primary research to both inform my understanding of people’s experiences with fleeting prosocial encounters as well as to gather material for the design itself.
The installation space consists of three main parts; the first being fabrics hangings that narrate the encounters between different kinds of people in various points of our lives. The second element is colour coordinated prints that adorn the walls with submission stories from the survey I conducted. Each shape alludes to a certain degree of familiarity between the performer and the receiver of the kind act and the colour is associated with the kindness manifesting as an action, an item, or a food-related instance, which are reoccurring themes that were recognized during the analysis of the data. The third part of the space is a message exchange that takes place on the projected walls. Participants are invited to write a kind act, a wish, a hope, and attach it to the map on the wall and then take a random tube in return to create a cycle of reciprocity and provide visitors with a little keepsake.