“Die Zauberflöte – Magic Flute” (Music Instrument Workshop) – Cooperate with Kinderunikunst 2018 Summer Programme

“Die Zauberflöte – Magic Flute” (Music Instrument Workshop) – Cooperate with Kinderunikunst 2018 Summer Programme

By cooperating with Kinderunikunst, we two, ( Violet Dahyun Kim, Pavel Naydenov) conducted a music instrument workshop with children.  This programme was aiming to help children to design and build their own music instrument by using recycling materials such as paper box, plastic garbage, leftovers from last workshops.

First, we let them to sketch their ideas on paper and talk about what they want to play with this instrument and how possibly they could play with them.

Many of them were using strings and wooden beads in order to make string instruments and maracas.

In the end of the day, they could put their instrument all together and make a presentation in front of everyone, how they developed their sketch to final products and what their instruments sound like.

Some of the children even wrote poetic – blueprint.

The age of children were quite dynamic, some of them were under 10, some were over 12. Most of them are not only focusing on music fuction, but also on diverse multiple fuctions like screening films, decoration, moreover transportation fuctions.

Their small exhibition took a place at the corner of Social Design Studio, for two days.

Workshop by Violet Dahyun Kim, Pavel Naydenov

Supported by Kinderuni Kunst Wien, Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation, Die Angewandtde.

(c) Image Copyrights reserved by Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien KinderuniKunst

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un.documented : creating resilience in Roma communities (2018)

un.documented : creating resilience in Roma communities (2018)

Master Thesis Download (click the link)

The project un.documented aims at highlighting the issue of Roma people who lack personal identification documents through identifying the variety of misunderstandings between the civil society, NGOs and government institutions all trying to solve this societal problem. The project will encourage the discourse between different governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations by bridging them through an online platform.

Objectives:

There are serious issues which generate mostly in marginalised and vulnerable groups, in the Balkan peninsula, mainly in Roma communities. Focusing on the three main issues that Roma communities mostly encounter and suffer under – Healthcare, Education and Housing – we address the struggles of being undocumented, in order to provoke attention from the society and further discourse about the topic with the help of interdisciplinary studies, artistic research and interviews with different institutions and experts.

Throughout the project cycle, we created many connections between different stakeholders, institutions and organizations which was the essential part of our social design actions. The important results out of whole process are:

• Online platform in which audience can find all the information about ongoing situation and issues,
• An Open Letter through which it is made clear that our research has identified and will address the enormous problems Roma communities encounter in macro and micro levels,
• Drawings which were used as an artistic tool for the field research phase and a series of two booklets (Vol.1 focused on the historical and political context and Vol.2 focused on the project, its development and outcome).

By focusing on two Balkan countries, Bulgaria and Macedonia, the four of us tried to figure out how different these two nations’ structures and approaches are, and how these two countries envision their future with Roma communities. These two Balkan countries serve as good examples to compare different approaches and policies for Roma inclusion, since Bulgaria is working towards the European Union’s policies and Macedonia is a non-EU country, striving to become one.

The objective of the project as previously mentioned is to bridge the different institutions and stakeholders from various level to have a discourse on the topic of undocumented Roma people. More specifically the objectives of the projects are:

1. To highlight and identify the institutional gaps within the issue of undocumented Roma people.
2. To bridge the institutional and structural problems experienced by the stakeholders in the decision making process through an online platform.

click the link to see the online platform : www.un-documented.com

Indra’s Net:

In Buddhism, the term ‘Indra’s Net’ symbolises how we individuals are all glass beads which are threaded together in a vast net. This glass bead net is so huge that the end cannot be seen and all beads are connected with each other. Each bead projects an individual;  at the same time the connectedness of the net describes a cosmic matrix. Indra’s net thus describes how we are all interconnected. Indra’s Net emphasizes the importance of symbiosis. We should understand ourselves as a whole, like Indra’s Net, but ironically we have always separated ourselves from each other throughout the long history of mankind, due to issues of mutual understanding and due to historical, cultural, and ethnic reasons. Thus “others” such as the Roma communities, confront a huge barrier to live their lives within the majority culture, which is represented by “us”.

During the interview process, it became clear that there were several points which were repeatedly mentioned by various institutions and stakeholders. Therefore, after brainstorming and collecting the data from the interview quotes, we figured out that which interview quote is associated with which issue, how this issue is linked to another issue. It turns out that they are connected to each other and that one problem causes another, which can lead to another. Thus, through Indra’s net, we tried to show how these problems are concretely connected and how it influences to the other issue in macro level.

Artistic approach:

(original drawings by Violet Dahyun Kim)

The way to make a documentation should be chosen carefully, depending on who the target group is and who the subject of the documentary is. Drawing is one of the various ways, which is very indirect and analog in the way it replicates the figures. The use of drawings has been used in various contemporary social science researches, primarily in the field of anthropology and sociology as well as arts based research and participatory visual methodologies (De Lange, Mitchell, & Stuart, 2007; Rose, 2001). The use of drawings either through documentations or through expression of individuals has been used as early as 1935 (MacGregor, Currie, & Wetton, 1998). Within art based research, it is argued that drawings or any visual representation speak for themselves and that they can represent something that is not easily expressed through words (Weber 2008).

For this reason, it can occasionally imply more hidden or obvious messages than photography or video recordings. Furthermore, drawing as a tool of reproducing what the eye sees is a very indirect way of conveying the situation, therefore the audience can receive the messages individually and differently. In addition, through the drawing process as a medium, the psychological distance between the recorder and the recordees can be closer. Depending on which tool and method the researchers use to document, the way to interact with the interviewees can be significantly different.

Since people are often repulsed or lose their natural behaviour in front of the documentary tools such as camera and voice recorder, they try to be perfect for what they are talking about during the interview, and in such cases, the content of the documentary, including the interview, can be very different than expected. Moreover, in the case of video footage, because the words or actions of the person are recorded and are consumed by many people at the same time, frequently there are situations in which video shooting is rejected by interviewees.

It was therefore important to document Roma communities, institutions and organizations by drawing, in order to not only create a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere between them and us but also to achieve an eye level. The atmosphere often changes the content and manner of the conversation, and it also helps to remove the barriers of communication between researchers and interviewees, not just because of the drawings as a tool but also because of the way audio recording has been used. The interviewees were assured that the records will only serve as notes during our working process and will not be streamed in public, which in its own way significantly contributed to a comfortable atmosphere, in which they felt free to speak out.

By doing illustrations and notes, the Hawthorne effect can be mitigated of the individuals being met. In particular, the Roma communities, government employees, and NGO workers have specific identities in some societies, therefore the researchers tried to prevent the secondary biases which can be produced by documenting them including the physical attributes of the people, the geographic location of the interviews and the people around them.

The drawings used for our project have been made in black and white because we believe that colors often convey specific characteristics, details, information about status, class, ambience and circumstances. The idea is to avoid distraction by painting biased pictures of the situation but to increase the attention on the content within the drawings.

They were used as a specific tool and one of the artistic approaches for the project, the drawings are required to design the online platform. Each drawing has been drawn with very fine and soft lines, and it is intended to create a visual identity of the project, and connect different sequences. In order to create wider spaces to imagine the interview place, circumstances, and the air of the situation, it was also necessary as much as drawing people, to portray selected details of the place, such as plants, furnitures, surroundings.

References

1. De Lange, N., Mitchell, C., & Stuart, J. (2007). Putting people in the picture: Visual methodologies for social change. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.
2. MacGregor, A. S. T., Currie, C. E., & Wetton, N. (1998). ‘Eliciting the views of children about health in schools through the use of the draw and write technique.’ In:’ In: Health Promotion International, 13(4), 307–318.  10.1093/heapro/13.4.307
3. The Hawthorne Effect is the inclination of people who are the subjects of an experimental study to change or improve the behavior being evaluated only because it is being studied, and not because of changes in the experiment parameters or stimulus. (Reference : © 2018, Investopedia, LLC,  Hawthorne Effect Definition | Investopediahttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hawthorne-effect.asp#ixzz5Im25i4yr)
4. Weber, S. (2008). ‘Visual images in research.’ In J. G. Knowles & A. L. Cole (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues (pp. 41–54). London, England: Sage.

Developed project together with : Gerald Reyes, Julijana Rosoklija, Mariya Tsaneva

Supervised by Ruth Mateus-Berr, Brigitte Felderer

Supported by Social Design-Arts as Urban Innovation, Die Angewandte

Copyright ©un.documented 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Feminism Podcast “PadPadPadPad” (2017~)

Feminism Podcast “PadPadPadPad” (2017~ ongoing project)

link : http://www.podbbang.com/ch/14682

In order to create discussions about feminism (especially for Korean society), this podcast has been planned by us, me Violet Dahyun and Kyeonglim Jang, who are studying for the master degree at the Univeristy of Applied Arts Vienna. Since South Korea is a very conservative and discriminative country, there are variety of issues which are relevant to feminism topic.  Although South Korea is regared as a developed country, some social issues are neglected there without being solved or discussed. This podcast project is therefore pointing out these unsolved problems due to offer opportunities not only to reflect ourselves but also to open up the conversation about them.  Since it is planned for Korean society, all the episodes we proceeded were spoken in Korean, however we’re planning to translate all episodes in English soon.

Each episodes has different subjects, includes postcolonialism and racism topics.

1. What makes women to become honarary males (POC to honorary whites)

2.  Why social minorities – or those who are not of power- constantly and frequently metaphorized as food

3. The start of hell-chosun (Confuscianism Special)

4.  Price of Women

5. Unlevel playing ground

6. <Border> Special Edition

7. Misogyny – became Hate Crime.

8. Transborderers, identity politics

9. When the state is a pimp

Podpodpodpod is basically an onomatopoeic word in Korean which describes the sound of grinding crops by means of mortar, but this word is oftenly used as a slang, together with brain, thus it means eventually “Your brain has been grinded”. We choose this title to address the people who keeps vanquishing women’s voices from the society.

@All copyrights reserved by Violet Dahyun Kim and Kyeonglim Jang

Handy Made Project (2017-2018)

Handy Made Project (2017-2018)

 

“Nomophobia” :  smartphone separation anxiety

It is clear that the introduction of new media, especially in the form of smart devices, has had an enormous impact on contemporary society from a social scientific perspective, as we grow ever more reliant upon it. As the author James Katz writes in his book Perpetual contact: mobile communication, private talk, public performance:

“They [mobile phones] have transformed social practices and changed the way we interact, yet surprisingly we have little perception on their effect in our lives.”

the psychological effects caused by the interconnection with digital technology are commonly accepted and more openly discussed.

As the merging movement of diverse media produces a global public sphere that is changing the ways we work, play, write, teach, think, and connect, new behavioural patterns are emerging.

Smartphones are so central to our lives that being separated from them for any length of time can put people into a high state of anxiety. Researchers have been looking into the reasons for our ‘smartphone separation anxiety’ – known as nomophobia – and found that it has little to do with being unable to make or receive calls.

“When users perceive smartphones as their extended selves, they are more likely to become attached to the devices, which, in turn, leads to nomophobia by heightening the phone proximity-seeking tendency” Dr Ki Joon Kim, of the City University of Hong Kong.

objective

The Handy Made project intends to represent a moment of intermission in a hyper-connected everyday life and offer ground for reflection. The project aims to raise awareness and to initiate a critical discussion about the profound interconnection between individuals and digital technologies.

In order to address the psychological effects provoked by the growing pervasiveness of new media, the project strives for enacting dynamics focused on tackling the distress raising from the mobile separation anxiety (nomophobia).

strategies

Considering the combination of our objective (the intention of the intermission in hyper-connected lifestyle through alternatives actions), the specific features of use from the object in analysis (the smartphone as an extension of the body) and our decision by a playful and ironic approach, we came up with an unconventional possibility for coping with distress by translating therapeutic practices into products which will act as palliatives for issues related to smartphone separation anxiety (i.e. Nomophobia).

 

cope with the anxiety using the prototypes (the product as an object of self-reflexion)

relation to the context – relaxing activity (symbolic value) [use]

The objects are represented by the prototypes (candle and soap) refer to relaxing, meditation, reflexion and even cleaning moments which symbolically suggest the user to engage in a beneficial and offline activity, considering the counterpoint of hyper-connective lifestyle, which the time only for yourself or the human interaction without technological devices interference are scarce.

relation to the object- physical interaction [shape]

 

The smartphone can be perceived almost as an extension of our body and minds. It is integrated in our everyday life in a physical perspective considering the relation of proximity with our bodies, apart from the fact the it works as external memory, collecting data and saving moments of our lives. By designing objects with similar physical features as smartphone but with other functions, we aim to recreate a different feeling of connection to the device.

relation to the material – separation anxiety (dissolvence) [material]

 

Handy Made Candle melting video (click here to watch it)

By using materials as glycerin and wax we reframe their characteristics of melting or dissolving process over the smartphone detachment. The prototype shape will be distorced and vanished over the time, representing the disappearance of the anxiety and reliance related to the overuse of smartphones.

 

public event (experiment)

 

In order to bring our project to the audience, we decided to plan an action in public space.

Our action has been designed not only to create a moment of interaction with the public and collect feedback from it, but also to present a playful vision which is capable of challenging the mainstream conception of technological devices, and moreover making visible alternative perspectives which are framed into practices of counter culture.

We choose Karlsplatz for this experiment since it is regarded as a multifunctional space. It offers broad audience by means of two different lines of subway, commercial area, furthermore connection to the diverse public spaces. Long hallway of the Karlsplatz leads passengers to the park, square and several educational institutions includes TU Wien. Karlsplatz station is also the spot which frequently has been used by passengers as a meeting point, transfer station. Therefore it is common to see people using their smartphone while they are waiting for their companion or the other public transportation.  

As an essential part of our action, a performance has been planned to introduce the project to the public. By using very little details (e.g shower gown, mirror, bowl with water), we invited the audience to be spectators for the very intimate and private situation, as i was washing myself in what appeared to be a bathroom set within a public space.

The performance seeks to reenact a situation where our product might be used while it symbolically represents the privatization of a public space as conceptualized by James Katz – “One of the most distinctive characteristics of a mobile phone is that it privatizes public places. Interacting with a mobile phone in the presence of others lends itself to a certain social absence where there is little room for other social contacts. […] Non-verbally, the mobile device leads to “closed” and “passive” public behavior”

Public Experiment Video @Karlsplatz (click here to watch the video)

results and reflection

The action in public consisted in a experimentation aming to collect the audience feedback about the introduction of our prototypes and the presentation of an alternative attitude over the use of smartphones. The performance was fundamental to caught the audience attention, arouse their curiosity and invite them to take a closer look.

The people we had the opportunity to talk with, we could perceive an instant identification to the topic as soon as we explained it. Some of them even shared a feeling of guilt related to the overuse of the smartphone.

Teenagers showed a bigger interest to our products. Since they are the part of the native smart-technology generation, they are very much connected and interested into the topic we brought up. We managed to ask several questions to them – which part/function of smartphone compels them to use their devices, if they got bothered by spending too much time on checking or using their smart devices. We gave them our products after we interviewed and explained them about our project. They could choose between candles and soaps, most of them took soaps rather than candles.

As funny fact, our prototypes also caused trick effects. Some people approached our display thinking we were dealing with real smartphones, however, as soon as they realized that they were candles and soaps, they immediately lost their interest.

Conclusion

All in all, we want to conclude by saying that the most important aspect of our project was to actively present an alternative perspective about such crucial and cross-border topic and trigger reactions in people. We succeed in initiating a discussion and provoking critical self-reflection about certain habits related to the misuse of smart devices.

However, conclusive data couldn’t be collected in order to prove whether or not our prototype produced therapeutic effect on the people addressed during our action, as we couldn’t check in if further benefits have been taking place in private setting.

After this first action, we realized that in order to gather more information and personal feedback about this issue and its effects (nomophobia), we would need to frame the discourse in a longer lasting format which could take form of an event, specialist’s talk and/or an exhibition.

 

@All copyrights reserved by Violet Dahyun Kim, Asia Valencic, Nathalia Portella

Supervised by Monika Farukuye,

Supported by Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation,  Die Angewandte

“Heldinnen & Helden” (Shadow play) – Cooperate with Kinderunikunst 2017 Summer Programme

“Heldinnen & Helden” (Shadow play) – Cooperate with Kinderunikunst 2017 Summer Programme

By cooperating with Kinderunikunst, we three ( Violet Dahyun Kim, Que Chi Trinh, Michel Gölz) conducted an workshop with children. As the title showed, this workshop was for the shadow play.  The shadow play was performed and created by the children who were attending this workshop. They were divided into 3 different groups to build their own story and make the stage, paper dolls and the rest of decorations for the shadow play.

 

 

The 1st day, children performed the shadow play with the paper dolls and decorations which were designed and made by themselves. Their story for the shadow play was built by one child in each group who took the role as a theater author. So they divided their tasks themselves and kept their roles. It was really interesting to see how do they discuss and seperate their jobs.

 

 

The 2nd day, we asked them to use their body to perform shadow play. And we invited their parents to show the shadow play which prepared by their kids. They discussed themselves how to develope the stories and body movement for the shadow play and they practice with the lights enthusiastically.

When their parents arrived, they performed their own shadow play. Even some groups were very eager to show the 1st day’s shadow play after they performed body shadow play.

Supported by Kinderuni Kunst Wien, Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation, Die Angewandtde

Residency Exhibition at Kunsthaus Wien (Hundertwasser Museum) (2017)

 

Residency Exhibition at Kunsthaus Wien (Hundertwasser Museum) (2017)

Meine Favoriten Deine Favoriten has residency at Kunsthaus Wien from 06.06 to 09.06.

Through the pictures that we photographed in Favoriten with the quotations from our interviewers we presented how the residences in Favoriten see their district and situation. Portraits were also together with the quotations.

Supported by Hudertwasser Museum Kunsthaus Wien, Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation, Die Angewandte

Faces of Favoriten (2017)

Faces of Favoriten (2017)

(click the images to enlarge)

Faces of Favoriten is one methodology for our semester project “Meine Favoriten deine Favoriten”, which shows diverse people’s face whom we interviewed during the research process.  Through the portraits I wanted to convey the certain moments that I caught during the interview and their delightful, excited or doubtful, dubious, disconcerted.. facial expressions.

Favoriten is the 10th district in Vienna, where diverse of ethnic groups are living together. Since that, the people, especially who are not living in 10th district, have prejudice on this area and they sometimes even don’t try to hide their negative opinions towards Favoriten. Nonetheless, many Favoriteners, whom we talked with, they love their district very much. During the interview, they explained us about the prejudices towards 10th district and ongoing issues, conflicts, positive views, negative views…and so on. Then I decided to draw these Favoritener’s faces and quote their interviews on the portraits that I drew.

Supervised by Herwig Turk,

Supported by  Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation, Die Angewandte

Collaboration with Burgtheater (2016)

C O L L A B O R A T I O N   W I T H   B U R G T H E A T E R

As an extension for the project,
collaboration with Burgtheater
we hosted a workshop with students of the
“Bundesgymnasium und Bundesrealgymnasium
Wien XXI Bertha von Suttner”.
The workshop was divided in two.
Each group included students across three different grades
and was provided a different topic.

To encourage student’s creativity, they took on the roles of
directors, producers and writers as well as actors…
By performing and directing themselves they were highly
motivated to make their shows successful and were also
building confidence, creative and artistic skills.

Students were working together in different groups,
discussing among themselves to create a story and
design the paper dolls for the peformance.

And they developed a play and performed it with paper dolls
which were made by individual students.

 

Theater performance

“Peace” was the topic for the theater performance.
Students created their own stories by discussing
and performing their ideas on the stage.

Organized by Ruth Mateus-Berr

Collaborated with  Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation, Die Angewandte, Burg theater

Bikea (2014)

BIKEA (Bicycle + Flea market)

Bicycle design for the merchants, and furthermore, for outdoor activities.
It’s hard and irksome to carry all the stuff from place to the other place.
Many of merchants  sometimes need to bring their own table or rent it to display and sell their products .

With the tables on both sides of bicycle, users can display their items and carry their stuff very easily especially with the hangers on the tables.

©All copyrights reserved by Violet Dahyun Kim

Toilet Paper Project (2016)

 

T O I L E T P A P E R   P R O J E C T

Toilet Paper is not the typical paper roll
we commonly see in our toilets, Instead it is considered
as a media platform and contains various types of
thought provoking images and texts
which can spread sparkling ideas in the toilet.

Printed mostly on recycled paper
and with a multitude of various formats and sizes,
“Toilet paper” focuses on providing fresh ideas
to the public in a humorous and ironical way

Not how nice your skin will feel after using it.

 

<REMEMBER : POLISH BLACK MONDAY>

Women took to the streets of the Polish capital, Warsaw,
in a pro-choice march which they called “Black Monday”.
There were also protests in Gdansk, Lodz, Wroclaw, Krakow
and elsewhere cross the majority Catholic nation.
Demonstrations were held in solidarity thorugh other
European cities, including Berlin, Brussels, Dusseldorf,
Belfast, London and Paris. *(source – BBC News)

The abortion ban which leads to the protest appressed
women’s rights and women’s freedom of choice.
In my opinion, this demonstration was very meaningful
as it highlights that in the 21st century we are still living
in a world, where women are not treated equally.

The coat hanger is the symbol of Polish Black Monday,
referencing the many women who have died
or been exposed to danger during self-induced abortion
by use of coat hangers. As many Catholic nations have prohibited
abortion, many women were and are forced to raise unwanted
children and suffer the dangers and risks of pregnancy.
To empower and support this revolution, I included this topic
in my toilet paper project.

 

Since I began to study feminism and gender equality
it has greatly influenced my illustrations.
Feminism is one of my favourite social topics
and as it was already prominent in my illustrations
I decided to take it further: into a social design project.

First we design the toilet papers and print them out,
then we spread them in public lavatories.

As I’m interested in other feminism projects
from the social design program, some of my toilet papers are
directly related to the project of Cosima Terasse and Chi Trinh
titled “Soif Kaht Vong”. I used quotes featured in their
project and added my illustrations to them.

Floating Rice

Of shape silk-white and round;
I spin, through stream and ground,
Maimed by hands who mold me through,
but my red heart still beats true.

Ho_Xuan_Huong

<SOIF KHAT VONG PROJECT>

SOIF Kaht Vong is Cosima and Chi’s project.
It is dedicated to feminism and womens rights,
Specifically for Vietnamese women.
The poem which they’ve used for their project descrpition
had a profound impact on me thus I’ve used the poem and expanded
upon their uniform design for my Toilet Paper illustration work.

<Stop Gendering Products>

I’ve found the products we use almost everyday
are also designated “gender” although it’s not necessary
to distinguish them by gender.
Furthermore there are not simply two different genders.
I wanted show through my illustration how ridiculous it is,
especially concerning deodorants and razors.
Given the function and goal of these products are the same
but why do we still need to distingush them by gender
through colour and shape?
This question is also applicable for many other products
– clothes, accessories, and so on.