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Yunshan Jiang

System mapping kinship&quilting

What am I discover:

By making these two system maps, I gained more organized thought about quilting. Especially when I made the iceberg map, I keep asking myself “why” question so that I could think deeper about the reason that women who are in poor family do quilting. The system map could also help me to think about something that I overlooked and help me to explore more details of my guide project. For example, except considering why women doing quilting, men also have their reasons of doing quilting in some cases. I need to do more research on that one. 

Kinship Cohort Reading

For the cohort group reading I am interested in Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan’s article “Introduction from Slanted Truths”. I resonate with the concept of “Gaia theory”. For my point of view, it is a materialistic explanation of our planet’s mechanism. Every planets are generated after the big explosion of universe. The area where has the high energy aggregated dust and different materials together in the universe, then the earliest planets were formed. Based on Gaia theory, our earth is just the sum of energy and it is “a single, self-regulating entity”. Each creature grows up by absorbing the sun’s energy and the energy transfers between different spacies. Besides, from the article, Gaia is Symbiosis. From my understanding, all creatures in our earth have either close or far connection. This idea is related to Buddhist book I have read. For example, every time when we take breath, we gain the energy from the space. After we die, our body will transfer to energy that other creatures will absorb, or the energy will be part of new life. In this case, we become different life form. If we trace back to the root of life, all we might be from the same ancestor. Therefore, we can even say that you are me and I am you. 

For Donna Haraway’s “The Companion Species Manifesto Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness”. I am confused about the differentiation and similarity between cyborgs and dog. Also I quite don’t understand why she said “I consider dog writing to be a branch of feminist theory”. For my understanding of the article, Donna Haraway treated dog as a trustworthy companion. The kinship between human and dog is strong and has long history.  

Systems Thinking

  • Which system (type of stakeholder) that Easterbrook identified did you find your own understanding of GMOs most aligned with? Why? What are some of the stakes of these stakeholders?

I am the supporter of “a system of scientists doing research”. In this system, the stakeholders are scientists who purely pursued the applied research of GMOs which is expected to have practical function for agriculture. I am more understandable for these scientists as their research might bring huge financial and food supply’s benefits. For those stakeholders who are worried food safety issue, their worries had been considered by scientists and they had trials at Rothamsted for testing the new GMO. For stakeholders who are ethnical review board member, their stakes are “beneficence”(value versus risk). For stakeholders who are advocate for ecosystem health, their stakes are protecting the balance of ecosystem in the specific area. For stakeholders who are the members of corporations, their stakes are how to make more profit from the intellectual property rights they controlled. 

  • Using your own topic for research, can you Identify 3 stakeholders (groups or phenomenon) with different perspectives, and then describe the system (the stakes) from which they are operating? For instance, if the subject is “Safari Parks”, 3 stakeholders could be (1) Animal Rights activists, (2) the region’s Board of Tourism, and (3) the local land itself. The first operates in a system of ethics around the treatment of animals; the second in a networked system of economic benefits for the community (hotels, food, and attractions), and the third, in an ecosystem that the safari park may put at risk, by introducing pollutants from animal waste and fertilizer, and ecological competitors such as escaped non-indigenous plant products used in the landscaping of the Safari Park.

My topic is kinship & quilting, 3 stakeholders could be (1) female in poor family (2) user(consumer)’s satisfaction of objects that are made by quilting and (3) quilters’ community.

The first operates in the expression of value and important family role of female, because in some area’s poor family, women take the role of quilters in order to make warm clothes for their family. Also quilting could be their unique language to express their thought and aesthetics.

The second operates in whether the function of quilting object has good quality(thickness, material of cloth, etc). Also, users care about whether the quilting object has good looking. 

For the last one’s operation, quilters’ community could gain benefit from quilters(saving money by using leftover cloths, and increasing affinity and cohesion with neighbour). Besides, quilters could also gain a positive feedback from their community. They could gain a sense of achievement and be respectable by family and friends.

kinship & quilting

At the beginning of my research, I found the basic meaning of quilting from wikipedia, “Quilting is the term given to the process of joining a minimum of three layers of fabric together either through stitching manually using a needle and thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting system.” It basically stitches different fabrics together for decoration or increase thickness. The use of quilting could be found in a variety of textile products that includes “bed coverings, home furnishings, garments and costumes, wall hangings, artistic objects and cultural artefacts.”  

Historically, quilting could be the early format of upcycling because it use of remnants and offcuts for the creation of new products.

Originally, the word “quilt” is associated with the Latin word culctia which means cushion. The term is firstly used in England in the 13th century. However, this technique of quilting has long history that can be traced back to the ancient Egyptian first dynasty. 

Quilting could represent different meanings and roles in different culture. For example, From the book Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, enslaved people used quilts as a means to share secret messages in order to escape slavery. For Native American, they learned quilting and use star quilts to replace buffalo robes which were used in births, marriages and ceremonies. 

Relationship between kinship and quilting:

From my basic research, quilting played an important role in some country’s society. It is a good way to maintain relationship between friends, family and community. For example, in Pakistan and India, Friends and relatives gather to make a ralli for a dowry quilt. Community helps to stitch different layers of cloth. 

Moreover, in the history, quilting also reflect women’s “voices” which cultural studies has overlooked. According to the quilts women made, they don’t only tied family and friends together, but also show female’s social value. Quilts became presentations which showed women’s concerns, vision and aesthetics. 

Problem:

For the future research, I am concerned the connection between quilting with poverty, female and society.  For the reason, historically, quilting is the method to connect leftover material, and in Chinese background about poor family, women always take the role to stitch different cloths together for the family. Therefore, what is the function of quilting and what does it means to women in a poor family?

Related words: Patchwork, quilters, quilt, textiles

Quilting in different country:

China:

Africa:

Native American:

experimental making:

I tried to simulate quilting by using some image textures as the leftover material. Then i do some operation to these fabrics(cutting, sewing, patching) for making different designs of patterns.

Related article 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

Emergent Strategy Response

“A mushroom is a toxin-transformer, a dandelion is a community of healers waiting to spread…” (9)

  • Q: In your view, what is a function of humans in the universe?

For my point of view, the function of humans in the universe is helping other people and let other people feel the beauty of the universe. Also, it will be admirable if people leave something and keep have positive impact to the world. It has so tiny chance to be an intelligent life entity in the universe. Therefore, we have to utilize the opportunity to bring happiness and love to other people, and live the the life we will remember.  

From Buddhist ideology, any life will become other life forms after their death. What you will become in the next life loop depends on how much good things you did in the past. If a people do enough good things to the universe, they will live above the universe and no more life loop for them. I believe this could guide us to make our world a better place.

Q: Do you find any of these principles more difficult to achieve than others in your own creative practice? How?

The principle I feel difficult to achieve in my own creative practice is “change is constant(Be like water)”. I remember Bruce Lee also said the similar sentence, “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.” This is also a key concept from Tao. For my understanding, Water could be different forms in different environment. As humans, if we could be like water we will be adaptive to both negative and positive situation. Our world is constantly changing and our mindset should also keep up with the times. Our life will be easier if we become comprehensive and receptive. 

For myself, I always strictly follow the instruction and flow of work or study, which make me be inefficient and less creative in different aspects. Some times, we have to break rules(it has to be legal), then we could find multiple possibility especially for doing art works.