Qizhe Chen
Inhabited Space Assignment
Class of: 2023
Major: Strategic Design and Management BBA
Medium: Installation, Recycled Plastic
Faculty: Robert Hickman
Prompt: For this assignment, we were asked to create a portable space that you will inhabit for one continuous hour. I must be able to fit within the space entirely and be separated from the outside world by a membrane.
I was inspired by their perspective and the sense of narrative. Additionally, the word membrane sparkled to me. Therefore, I decided to take an inflatable approach, and the idea was to create a sense of being trapped in the air-tide and isolating structure, a structure left me with no other connection to the outside world but a tube which feeds me oxygen. A metaphoric piece that I thought would be a great analogy of the current social-distancing situation. Bearing the narrative in my mind, I also wrote two mini-paragraph expressing my feeling, one written when I spent 20 minutes inside the structure and the other one at 40 minutes. The following content would decipher the entire process of making the inflatable piece, from sketch to the final piece.
— Twenty minutes passed, it’s so warm in here and I really feel trapped in this bubble-like structure. I sympathize with all the medical doctors and police officers. They must miss their family so much, and I cheer for them.
— It has been forty minutes, as my body starting to fell sore, I can’t help to recall how 162 medical doctors stand up for more than 12 hours on a daily basis since the outburst. My mom is also a medical doctor, and I am so proud.
