heritage & sustainability

These stories are part of my journey in a research that explores heritage products to seek sustainable practices from the previous generations.

[sarahsuib]

The Things and The Love

Consumerism - the love of buying things

Materialism - the love of owning things

Essentially, both are building the economy but they are also the sources that are straining the environment.

What do we value when we choose to buy or keep the things around us?

[sarahsuib]

Yohji Yamamoto

On his thought on the development in the fashion world:

“Yes, fast fashion ruined everything. People waste clothing. They buy and buy, sometimes without even wearing it, and ultimately end up swinging it in the trash. It is pollution. Even some products that are used to make the clothes are toxic. There is already so much unnecessary waste in the world.”

What we value in the items we are wearing? 

Right now I’m wearing a palazzo from India and a blue top from Vietnam.

The cotton pallazo is brand new bought by Mr. Jot during his trip in Chennai while the blue top is one of my favourite bought in 2013~ during a field trip in Hanoi. 

Ever since I started working on the research related to sustainability, I started to look at the artificial items around me and wonder why they are there surrounding my beings. I came to realize that some are really useful and meaningful to me, for example, the blue top matches my color really well, its basic blue hue ensure an everlasting style, really useful and comfortable in summer, the cut makes it an appropriate formal wear and the top add a dash of color in the layers of winter. 

There are also some items that I hardly ever wear but somehow attached to, hence, they are hibernating in the wardrobe regardless of the seasons. For now, I keep them on the left side of my drawer with the intention of turning them into a patchwork blanket when the time is ripe. 

The space on the left side of the drawer serves as a reminder of a bunch of fabric that needs to either be reused, upcycled or recycled before sinking them together with the waste of the world.

*The excerpt above is from an interview by I-D Magazine: https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/3kq4q9/the-worries-and-wisdom-of-yohji-yamamoto

[sarahsuib]

The big white space

What is nice about writing a thesis is the fact that I have this really big white space to put all the readings and thoughts into perspective. Sometimes, this space scares me with its spaciousness and my contribution seems so small, almost minuscule in this huge white space.  All this while, is this all that I managed to scrape by? Such thought haunts me from time to time. But I realized also this space is actually mine and I should be comfortable to share and present what I have learned and understand so far.

However, the reality is this white space is an unfamiliar space and I feel like a stranger here.

As any other strange place, and each time I feel foreign in a new place, I learned that the only way to be comfortable is to stay or keep coming back till there is no longer dismay only smiles and some warmth feeling inside.

[sarahsuib]

Politic

I’m writing about the theory of values tonight and realized that I don’t really know what politic means. To my surprise 

“(of actions) based on good judgment “ (Oxford’s Learners)

“(of an action) seeming sensible and judicious in the circumstances.” (google)

 Thereby, making a ‘politician’ someone who is professionally able to make a good judgement. 

But the problem with ‘good judgment’ is its operationalization - good to whom? judge based on what? 

Interesting to ponder, but I must go back to ‘what is the meaning of value?’ and ‘how values are related to products?’

wish me luck! ^^ 

[sarahsuib]

Plethora

Oxford Learner’s dictionary defines ‘plethora’ as ‘an amount that is greater than needed or can be used’. 

The list of work that is I need to finish is greater than what I can handle. 

“My list of work is a plethora of things”

That seems legit. ;P

[sarahsuib]

Last Wednesday, I went to the workshop ‘Digitisation of Cultural Work and Orphan Works”. Although the workshop was not directly connected to my research, but the topic of digitization of heritage is an interesting subject for the future works and its a good opportunity to get out from the house for some fresh air and meet up with new people. 

The workshop was conducted in ‘Konijklijke Bibliotheek van België’ or the Royal Library of Belgium, a delightful, welcoming and cozy place-- and now one of my favorite working spot in Brussels. The library has some really interesting collections of old documents and artifacts, one of the many collections that catch my attention was the rare book collections which consist of some old books from Japan. However, for now, my visits were mainly for thesis related exercise. 

Two recurrent themes pick-up during the workshop

Orphan works - Works ( i.e books, audiovisual, artifacts, articles, newspapers) that doesn’t have an owner or where the owner cannot be found or identified. These works might be part of collections in libraries, museums, education organization and archives (where their collections are accessible by public) and because the ownership cannot established these work cannot be shared openly to the public which is a shame. Part of the research presented in this workshop relates to the initiatives to enable these collections to be accessed by the public.

Diligent search - At first I thought ‘diligent search’ is a method to diligent look through every resources possible to validate or confirm a certain thing. However, I come to realize that ‘diligent search’ is an online resource that aim to collect and assist European Cultural Institutions in digitizing their collections. The link to their website http://diligentsearch.eu/.

The workshop ended with a visit to the Digitization Department of the royal library. It was such an interesting thing to learn how different types of documents are being scanned and captured for the world wide web collection and you can see some of the pictures taken there. 

Overall fun day and most importantly, I meet up with the Royal Library!

[sarahsuib]

Signature craft products

As I go through my old notes on the fieldwork in Vietnam I came across a note about a project endorsed by UNESCO in two heritage sites in Vietnam, Hoi An and My Son. One of the project objectives was to develop ‘signature craft products’ inspired by the tangible and intangible heritage, which is super interesting for the research actually, however, the project was targeted for tourism market. At some point in the research, I decided to focus on projects aimed for home decor and lifestyle product because the range of products in this market tend to have more functional values with more values in our everyday life.

It is good to be able look back now (at times ,I won’t lie, also with some regrets) and try to understand why certain decisions were made throughout the research and how it shaped the overall structure of the research now. Nevertheless, I still have the itch to learn more about the outcome of the project. 

http://www.craftlink.com.vn/projects/Traditional-Villages/KIM-BONG-CARPENTRY-VILLAGE.html

http://www.craftlink.com.vn/projects/Traditional-Villages/HOI-AN-LANTERN.html

From the examples of products shown in the website, it can be seen that most of the products still embodied the aesthetic elements (or the physical outlook) of local heritage products (this is purely from my observation as I did not looked in detail for each product) and I wonder what is the definition of ‘signature craft products’?

[sarahsuib]

Revamp

Currently, I’m in a revamping mode ergo some changes in this page and plan for a more research related content in the future. All these posting about the amount of hours that I’ve boxed everyday is not that inspiring and this page is turning into a factory ‘punch-in card’. 

Hope to share more meaningful stories in the future!

[sarahsuib]

Today I managed to box in 9 hours of writing..its been a while since I managed to write this much..currently I keep on being chased by failures of the past..these shadows were haunting me from time to time..i hope tomorrow we will have a better light.

[sarahsuib]

I found this question, written in 2013 and quite happy now that I have a clear idea how to answer this qiestion and I am currently writing this one up! though it has been 3 years now..oh my 😅🤓😥 #heritagevalue #heritage&sustainability

[sarahsuib]

only 2 hours of box continue with workinv on official papers for the immigration. This is the reality and its hitting me really hard. 😯😯

[sarahsuib]

next working for 5 hours in Wed and Tue, r respectively. It really hard to get into the zone again. 😯😯

[sarahsuib]

after the long weekend, I only boxed 3 hours on Monday🤔🤔

[sarahsuib]

Boxed 9 hours of work last Thursday before going to Oldenburg...then things go awry and chaos..😿😿 so easily seduced by the outside world

[sarahsuib]

my thought on what design should be before final boxing of the day 😼😼

[sarahsuib]

updating my writing blue boxes for 27th and 28th Sept. I managed to get 40 hours of working on revising the journal paper and learning atlas.ti for the analysis in 6 days. A good time to keep the routine moving (why did i decide for excel last year only god knows why 😽😽)

[sarahsuib]

It was a pain boxing up these five hours yesterday. The writing routine flactuates like crazy still..🤔🤔 A routine is necessary to speed up things but man they are really hard to obtain.