Exhibit

Exhibit Elements: Fall Down Seven

"Fall Down Seven, Rise Eight" is a Japanese proverb which encourages perseverance in the face of challenges. Bringing the proverb to life, we display seven videos within the exhibit that each portray a different type of fall, break, or failure. Each video must be viewed through an overlay of cracked glass, both transparent and mirrored, evoking the motif of the material cracks as a portrayal of challenges or failures, and the mirror to represent the self in the failure.

Video Displays

The video topics covered many different areas of life, with the goal of showing how the feelings and experiences of failure, falls, and setbacks may happen across a variety of lives, ages, and settings. The video topics highlight the writing process, sports (figure skating and swimming), learning to walk, parenting, immigration, and natural disasters.

5.ideas.mp4

2.immigration.mp4

6.fire.mp4

7.skating.mp4

4.fighting.mp4

3.walking.mp4

1.swim.mp4

Overlays

Each video display was overlain with a piece of acrylic. The acrylic was clear, with engravings designed to look like cracked glass. On top of those "cracks", shards of mirrored acrylic were sparsely arranged across the overlay. The cracks of the overlay are intended to evoke the imagery of physical breaks to signify failures, mistakes, or falls. The overlay is clear, as the audience is viewing mistakes and struggles of others, however, the mirrored shards are sprinkled across to suggest that the audience may see themselves and/or their personal experiences in some of the videos.

The cracks and breaks are added as an overlay, not embedded in the video, to highlight how failure and mistakes are often seen through a learned cultural lens. What we perceive as errors is shaped by societal norms, so we chose a removable overlay to suggest that mistakes may not be mistakes at all, depending on the perspective.

Exhibit Elements: Rise 8

The 8th element of our exhibit, intended to represent the "Rise", portrays shards of glass glued back together with gold glue, a nod to the ancient art of Kintsugi. Many mended mirrors are hung side by side in a serene display. The 8th station is filled with beauty, aiming to evoke feelings of pride, awe and admiration at the rebuilt "self" shown through the mirrors. By including multiple different mended mirrors, the 8th station also aims to highlight the different ways in which each individual may mend and form themselves in the face of failure, highlighting the creative capacities of humans and how that creativity is crucial in intentional and self-driven formation.

Personal Framing

Surrounding the center piece, we chose to add elements of our own personal histories and practices to frame the exhibit with pieces of ourselves.

The cranes were incorporated into the design of our display as a nod to Jess's hobby of folding cranes. Each of the strings is 100 cranes long, all of which were folded by Jess. The repetitive folding required to create the long strings of cranes draws on one of the central tenants of Wabi Sabi: iteration. Furthermore, incorporating origami into the exhibit aligned with other elements inspired by different areas of Japanese history and culture.

Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591), a great master of the tea ceremony, said, “In a tea ceremony, there is no tool more important than a hanging scroll.” The scroll, chosen by the tea master, is often next to a selected floral arrangement as objects of meditation. Our scroll was added to invoke reflection in exhibit visitors, since we believe reflecting on past falls and rises is crucial to formation. The scroll and flower together are a reference to the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Taiga's mother, who is a tea master, converted Taiga's old bedroom into a tea room with a circular light with waves in the middle, which served as our design inspiration for the centerpiece of the exhibit. On the scroll, we added personal anecdotes to times in our life where we experienced falls and rises.

Our Stories

In sixth grade, someone told me the mall near my house used to be a Japanese internment camp. That’s why my mother’s neighbors could speak her language. Some histories are paved over. Some histories leak through.

In 2019, my brother’s house burned to the ground. Shelly’s paintings. Esme’s toys. A neighborhood. All gone. We’re still building something new. It’s slower than we want it to be. But it’s happening.

When I learned a new jump in figure skating, falling isn’t the accident—it’s the method. My body had to fall again and again just to figure out how high, how fast, how much to trust the air and the ice.

Sometimes I speak in class and immediately want to take it back. Sometimes I write a paragraph and don't even know what I'm trying to say. But I've learned that confusion isn't a detour, it's part of the process. We figure things out together slowly, unevenly, generously. Formation isn't clarity. It's staying in the mess long enough to begin to make meaning.

I used to think the only way I could contribute to the team was by swimming faster. After enough panic attacks on the starting blocks, I found a different lane: organizing my team to offer free swim lessons for kids who had never even seen a pool before.

After three days of coding and refreshing and swearing at my laptop, my ‘quiz’ still showed a blank white screen. I was about to quit. I asked a friend for help. We laughed, fixed it in 42 minutes, and I learned that stubbornness isn’t the same as resilience.

It took me twenty-seven tries to draw a dog in third grade. All of them looked… suspiciously like pigs. Then my teacher, Orit, showed me how to start with a circle and two floppy ears. It wasn’t perfect. It was better: it was a dog.

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