Guide Link: https://editor.p5js.org/YunshanJiang/full/s5KWGZK0Rc
Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwDVVqSpDUg
Critical point: Women are treated unequally in some Chinese handcraft fields, but they have the same talent with male. For example, in in some places, master only taught young male the skill of making clothes. Female at home expresses their emotion by stitching leftover cloths(quilting).
My Intention: I tried to use the guide to express gender equality especially in Chinese handcraft fields. We have to pay more attention on women’s right of accepting knowledge in society.
System: The system is Chinese handcraft fields.
Stakeholders: The stakeholders are women, men, customer, craftsman, craftswoman.
Guide explanation:
I made a simple game as the guide by p5.js. The game has two parts. On the left is the field representing female. On the right is the field representing male. Players can see different fabrics around the border of each field. On the left part, the fabrics are old and dirty, which represents female has very limited resources for doing quilting. On the right part, the fabrics are colourful and high quality, which represents male has very rich resources. The mouse on the left part is a pink needle which represent female, and the mouse on the right part is a blue needle which represent male. The rule of the game is to drag the fabrics’ part to the centre in order to make a complete quilt. On the left part, the low-quality cloths make very dark and irregular quilts at the beginning, however, in the end, the consequence of women’s work is as beautiful as men’s work, which present women can also make a pretty quilt even if they are treated unequally.
Interview:
From my interview, I talked with an expert tailor who works in a custom suit shop. He told me that in his hometown, majority of people who made clothes were man. When I asked him about what women did and why he did not taught the skill to a young woman, he said most of women went to factory and it was not convenient to have a woman student. From my knowledge background, in China, many handcraft skills were only inherited by men. Therefore, I want to use the guide to make people get notice about the social phenomenon in China.
Research:
Based on my research, I found out that, quilting are an important duty for women especially in many countries’ poor families. Women don’t do farm work like men in outside; therefore, they do not have too many social activity. Quilting for these women is a good way to connect each family member, and it is a way to converse with other people. The pattern, design and aesthetics of quilting is the expression of sentiment for these women. It is a key method for transmitting information.
Reference:
Beeman, L. L. (2003). Connecting Centuries, Countries, and Cultures: Quilting and Patchwork in South Asia. Piecework, 11(6), 61–65.
Colleen R. Hall-Patton. (2008). Quilts and everyday life. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(08)31008-4
Wilson, M. (2022). Who We Are: Patchwork Quilting in Southern Appalachia. Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies, 28(1), 55–72.
Jailer-Chamberlain, M. (2004). Man Made: Piecing out a New Tradition in Quilting. Antiques & Collecting Magazine, 109(8), 44–50.
I really like the p5 sketch you ended up creating, Yunshan! The details you included were so well thought out, including have the user’s cursor be a quilting needled – so cool! I also like that you took a critical lens about gender equality in handcrafting. I wonder how the future of this craft will look, and what can be done to close the gender gap.
I like the format of your guide – intriguing and interactive. It also well delivers your point of view on this topic. Love the detail of the needle and with different color of strings – red and blue to represent female and male (I guess). Would be helpful if the user can have more guidance in the guide on how to play with the sketch. Look forward to your presentation!
Hi yunshan, I think your P5 is very amazing! I really love your idea! I love the details! For example, the color of the pointer will be different for men and women, and the patterns you choose are also very beautiful. So in fact, the quality of raw materials is only a very unimportant factor affecting the works. Which affects most is talent and hardworkong. It has also been proved that women are as excellent as men, or even better than men, because they have produced the same excellent works in a worse environment. I like the contrast very much. It’s very clever
This project turned out really well, Yunshan! I love that you made something so interactive. It feels like a puzzle. And I think that the details — dirty clothes for women and clean for men, etc — are really thoughtful metaphor usage. When I see your explanation, it makes a really clear statement about the resources available and the output produced by different genders in China. I think my only constructive feedback is that some of that explanation might be useful on the web page. Maybe some titles or captions would work well. “Use the scraps to make a quilt.” Or some questions for consideration, like “Did the clean fabric make a nicer quilt?”
Your take on the topic is very thoughtful, as does your interactive guide execution. I like the comparison between material quality and pattern, and the interactive elements when users take action on the “fabrics”. It shows not only the inherited system thinking for quilting techniques, but also indicates the system’s causal effects that permit tool access and maybe educational opportunities for females.
I really like the concept behind the game, but I would say that without reading your description and just using the p5 sketch the idea was not as clear. I couldn’t really tell the female vs male aspect from just the pink and blue dots. Maybe if you added some text to each side or a pop-up once the quilts have been completed explaining, that would be very helpful. Kind of like a post-game debrief. Otherwise, I thought the sketch was super super cool. The dragging and completing the quilt was really fun and satisfying.