Cheryl Zhang

My inspiration of creating this project came from the movie “UP”, where the main character in the movie wanted to fulfilled his dream by tying tons of balloons on his house and to fly toward the American wilderness. Thus, I decided to make a very calming and fantasy miniature world with a levitated upside down house and all kinds of species within a transparent container to represent that all abnormal
beings are accepted. To show that, I portrayed a very hopeful and peaceful scene where there is no discrimination between different individuals by including all kinds of animals and elements, as we as audiences can also see through the container.

First, I made needle felted animals because I like the texture of softness and realism. After creating the animals, I created a sphere beneath the up side down house to represent the Earth, yet to show that the house is floating in the space. Then, I made clouds with wool and attached them with the house. To me, clouds always appear to be magical “creatures” because they would present themselves in different shapes and forms that can be interpreted in different ways through people’s eyes. For me, I also felt like clouds represent escapism because we can imagine them into whatever objects we want. Moreover, I wanted to emphasize how everyone should not be afraid of daydreaming in order to accomplish their dreams, so I wrapped around the wool around string lights to make the clouds (dream) really stand out in the dark. Lastly, to create a stronger sense of the floating house and reinforce the levitating illusion, I made balloons out of wool on top the house as if the balloons were lifting up the house.