Embedded Files
Recreation of John Thomson's Old photographs
Recreation of John Thomson's Old photographs
Discovering key association between old images with life experience nowadays
The recreation images was created by the following steps: (1) explored old photos and journals left by the English photographer John Thomson in the 18th century; (2) explored the Vitastory cards; (3) explored the relevance of Vitastory card between the questions and symbols / implication hidden in the photos; (4) explored linkage of John Thomson’s photos between the story behind and symbols in each image; (5) categorized old photographs into themes: architecture, dressing style, landscape, leisure, making a living and tools; (6) added new elements into the old photographs; (7) interacted with the seniors in the Zouzhen community by using the materials mentioned in step 6, asked the seniors to make collage out of the materials and interviewed their experiences; (8) dug out the key elements and brainstormed questions that can stimulate ideas or recall life memories of seniors in the community; (9) recreated the old images with our interpretation; and done!
Field trips & Interviews with seniors
Meet and greets with the seniors by playing card games.
Workshop: Reconstruction of John Thomson's.
Workshop: Designing objects to interact with seniors & John Thomson's journey.
Reinterpretation of cultural heritage
The recreated images were mostly inspired by our interview with Ama(阿嬤) during the onsite workshop. The most impressive data we collected from the interviewees were discourse about marriage (unable to marry at their won will), cherishing (content with what you have physical and mentally), poverty (lacked of resources and pocket money), learning (mostly self-learned on reading and writing, or gained knowledge through churches or TV programs), religions (church and Christian belief have high involvement in their daily life), works (farming is a tradition for the family and helping with the chores) and travel (reward after hard-working and tough life). We combined those data with our selected images of John Thomson, to meet 4 purposes: (1) reinterpreted cultural heritage; (2) turned cultural heritage (photographs of John Thomson) into interactive tools that can connect us with the users and further stimulate memories; (3) offer experience and channels for the local residents to learn about their history.
Warm up activity
Went through all the images and found out key association that could stimulate life memories.
Discussed and categorized each image into themes.
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