Qishaman Shu

Week 1: Introduction to Sustainability

During the first week’s discussion on sustainability, I realised that sustainability plays a very important role in our lives. And that sustainable fashion is an essential topic in the fashion industry to reduce the concept of negative impact on the environment and society. And I learnt that sustainable fashion can be achieved through recyclable materials, improving working conditions, reducing energy consumption, reducing waste, ensuring the reusability of garments and improving consumer buying habits.

Plastic is a difficult material to dispose of, usually sorted by material and colour and then melted down for reuse, or even worse, dug into landfill holes and disposed of haphazardly.

I collected recyclable straws and plastic bottle caps and reused them by cutting and re-colouring them. I have repurposed recycled materials by cutting and recolouring them, reusing them in combinations of length and colour. The recombination of them turned them into some fabrics. The splashes of colour are vibrant and immediately refreshing!

Week 2: Emerging Technologies

In this week’s lecture on energy technologies, recently, more and more artists are expressing their creativity through innovative digital media and I realised that digital products are starting to catch on. In the normal design process, we need to try a lot of 3d experiments on the mannequin and keep changing as well as experimenting from 2d planar plate making and 3d experiments. There is a lot of wasted fabric and time in this process. But now I have learnt that we can use software to help us do this virtually and software like clo3d is one of them.

Using clo3d allows me to design my garments digitally and for me, I can see exactly how my prints will look on the garments, making it easy for me to make changes and adjustments. At the same time, I can see the cuts, details, fabric textures, etc., which makes it easier to make decisions and save on unnecessary fabric costs.

I also experimented with other energy techniques with this print.

I have used them on ins filters to give more possibilities to the prints I make and ins filters are a very good way to spread my work. Because the filters change according to the different angles of the face, this medium also allows my prints to have some interaction with people. I invited some friends to join me in experiencing and photographing the two ins filters I made. In the process I realised that it was a very easy way for people to experience and see my work and it was also very sustainable. During their experience I realised that virtual products offer designers and clients a whole new experience and that they can experience or wear them anytime, anywhere, they are not affected by time or environment.

Week 3: Nature

Inside the lecture about this week about nature, I realized that the plants themselves in nature have very many amazing colours. I used purple kale, cut at different angles or just one of its individual leaves and printed it on fabric. I found that in this way I was able to not only record the colour of the plant itself, but also get some prints of it, such as the shape of the leaf and the distribution of some of the meridians.

WEEK5 Cultural Sustainability

In relation to this week’s topic of cultural sustainability, I have based my work on the culture of my own ethnic minority. I used one of the traditional printing methods (bean dyeing) about my ethnic minority, the Dong. Bean dyeing, a dyeing process that uses soybeans as a dye-proofing agent, is one of the traditional Chinese printing and dyeing techniques that requires the use of openwork pattern templates and a dye-proofing agent made from soybean flour as the main ingredient, which is applied to fabric for dyeing, and is of great environmental value.

WEEK6 Empathy

Empathy is a deep connection that stems from sharing an emotional experience with someone. I created my work through my own understanding of empathy. I used rich colours and lots of lines to express the repeated emotional connection between people in empathy, and I also drew some blurred faces and human bodies to express empathy.

Self-reflection

Self-reflection After these weeks of study, I have realised the importance of sustainability in fashion and that sustainability is very beneficial not only for the present but also for the future. Inspired by this, I have tried to incorporate the idea of sustainability into my weekly assignments. In reviewing the assignments over the past few weeks, I realised that I haven’t done enough research and that I should spend more time reading books and going to museums on the weekends instead of just doing research on the internet in the next few weeks of my studies. I also found that I focused more on the colours in my assignments these weeks but lacked the exploration of their shapes. I should experiment more with different materials rather than just using one, as this will help to give my work a creative energy. At the same time, I should browse more artists’ works and do some art accumulation. In my weekly assignments I am happy to go out of my comfort zone and try new methods that I haven’t tried before, which is great, but I think I could combine the new methods I learnt and it might enrich my work. I also gained new knowledge while trying out new methods, but this knowledge is rather one-sided, so maybe I can continue to study and learn this new knowledge in my future studies. Overall, I am very proud of the weeks I have spent studying and after reflecting on them, I am very clear on how I want to continue to develop my work in the future and I am very inspired.