The first things coming to minds is my personal background.

Some keywords to high light: Cantonese, River, Bridge, Dim sum, worship respect, Festival events.

The technical talk introduces how ceramic workshop practices, focusing on materials, tools, and fundamental techniques in hand-building, wheel-throwing, and glazing

Clay as a creative medium and its potential for artistic expression. Participants will gain practical insights into studio safety, firing processes, and surface finishing methods, supporting both experimental and functional ceramic work.

Also, to shift heritage from static monument to living practice, where the city itself — its architecture, sounds, languages, and people becomes the artwork’s material.

Cultural heritage becomes both a mirror of personal belonging and a vessel for shared, enduring meaning.

How to engaging this relationship between objects and reconnecting. At this stage is creating storytelling. Exploring cultural heritage, memory, and belonging. Then turning art making into a storyteller.

In my memory about where I was bone and live. This is a design with a strong Southern Chinese character, is often used for shophouses. Today, qilou in Chinese communities typically have the ground floor (first floor) used for business, with the second floor and above used for living. Qilou provides both rain and sun protection and facilitates window displays, attracting business.

This project investigates how local cultural memory embedded in Guangdong’s old urban districts can be transformed into a form of contemporary urban heirloom through sensory research and interactive art. In rapidly modernising cities across Southern China, historical neighbourhoods and everyday cultural practices are being erased or overshadowed by commercial redevelopment. The sights of weathered façades, the sounds of Cantonese street life, and the distinctive smells of markets and wet alleyways are more than background experiences — they are intimate archives of collective identity and emotional belonging.

By conducting field research that collects visual, auditory, and olfactory impressions from a specific old city community in Guangdong, the project aims to reconstruct these fleeting sensory memories into a tangible and participatory artwork. The final piece will function as an artifact of narrative, carrying the layered stories of a place and the people who inhabit it. Through interactive elements that allow residents and visitors to trigger and contribute memories such as sound activation, tactile surfaces, or scent references the work will grow continuously, evolving into a living heritage object.

The project challenges traditional concepts of heirlooms as privately inherited possessions, proposing instead a collectively shared heirloom that belongs to the city and is nurtured by its community. By enabling intergenerational participation and reactivation of forgotten or overlooked memories, the artwork will serve as a medium of dialogue between the past and the present, reinforcing a sense of cultural continuity. Ultimately, this project aspires to preserve and revitalise the everyday cultural identity of Guangdong’s old towns, not as museum relics, but as active narratives shaping the city’s future.

I am targeting to focus on the roof from the building. This is the core of the showing part from the house. Traditional crafting making sculpture on the roof. They complex, unique, praying for good. The maker using those technique to make a story for people who living in this building.

Most of those decorations are showing a family story to making those creation having memory. The value to be memorize from the objects.

I really inspiring by those making. Also, those could be learnt from it too. In order to help me focus on base on object to create narrative.

Our sensory experience help human receive informations from where we are living. Our Sight,Smell,Taste,Touch and Hear consist to our Sensory system. When I listen a song on my play list that always would remind me the memory when i first heard it and the vibe and where.

This also is a way we can be using in the storytelling. People can receive information in many ways, and we can also use more design to convey our information not only through visuals.

In Lingnan architecture, roof ridge decorations are not merely ornamental features but symbolic extensions of ancestral hall culture. Positioned at the highest point of the building, the ridge functions as a visual site of spiritual authority, where clan values, moral teachings, and collective identity are publicly displayed. Through ceramic figures, historical narratives, and auspicious symbols, ancestral halls transform their rooftops into visible codes of lineage ethics and social order. Particularly in the context of maritime trade and migration, these decorated ridges also reflect the economic power and cultural return of overseas communities, reinforcing the ancestral hall as a spiritual center of both origin and belonging.

Decoration

Representation

Narrative

storytelling

Colour symbolization

By creating rubbings of the interior surfaces of buildings in Gwangju, Suh explores how they bear witness to violence and asks what memories they carry against the grain of official histories. Working with assistants, Suh’s collaborative process also becomes a moment of collective witnessing. He says: ‘It was not a performance, but there was a deeply moving sense of ritual, or commemoration, that came from doing things together.’

Glaze making could provide me a specific representing colour for my ceramic practice.

So during these two weeks in the workshop. I learnt glaze making theoretically. The glaze that i chose to progressing in a grossing indigo blue with texture of green. It is very usual to see i the old downtown of the city.

Understanding of narrative positioning in objects and design. Shape, Colour, Photography organized very special effect to objects and storytelling. By display a physical objected by audience looking in front.

As the most immediate and tactile visual element, shape defines the physical boundaries of an object and determines its presence within space. When an object is displayed in front of the audience, its shape mediates the relationship between viewer and object, influencing distance, orientation, and bodily response. Unlike colour or photographic imagery, which often operate on symbolic or representational levels, shape functions through direct perception, allowing meaning to emerge through scale, contour, and spatial tension.

Akio Takamori

Icinoric

Structure and Me

Space is not neutral; it is activated through bodily movement, daily use, and memory. Architectural elements such as corridors, doorways, and thresholds function as extensions of lived experience.

Material

Suh use of sheer fabric renders architecture ghost-like—present yet intangible. Transparency suggests the ephemerality of memory, the instability of identity, and space as a psychological projection.

In Suh’s work, “home” is not a fixed location but a portable and reconstructable condition. His translucent fabric replicas of former homes emphasize the fragility and mobility of belonging.

By reconstructing past living spaces, Suh transforms private memory into a shared experience. Rather than restoring the past, his works reactivate memory in the present, presenting time as non-linear.

Beyond the my practice in the studio. I narrow down a specific colour to presenting my core themes of my subject. Base on the mehtod i learnt from the make glaze class, A glaze coukd be possible to showing different colour. Depends on in thicksness and material also the shape of the objects too.

Akio Takamori was born and raised in Japan. He has been exhibiting in the United States, Europe and Asia since the mid 1980s.

These elements within their architectural context, the audience experiences storytelling not as a linear account but as a spatial narrative. Meaning emerges through proximity, movement, and attention to detail. In this way, architecture becomes a vessel that preserves traditional craft while allowing cultural narratives to be activated through spatial perception and embodied experience.

Architecture embeds cultural meaning through traditional craftsmanship.

Decoration, texture, and colour function as spatial narrative devices, enabling viewers to encounter history and cultural value through embodied spatial experience.

These symbols are situated within homes, streets, and communal environments, like traces left behind. They do not wait for rituals to begin; instead, they persist through time, encountered and re-encountered through daily movement. In this repetition, wishes are no longer momentary expressions, but beliefs preserved by space itself.

I often encounter these symbols unintentionally. They ask not to be interpreted, yet through looking, they awaken a sense of familiarity that resists clear explanation. This resonance does not belong solely to personal memory, but to a deeper cultural echo—as if these symbols have always been there, quietly waiting to be seen again.

Colour, shape, and gesture become the clues they leave behind. They point toward desires that remain unspoken, and they form my own way of offering blessings. Between seeing and presenting, I am not documenting symbols, but affirming the continued presence of hope.

From history. Ancient civilization people using knot as symbol or we could say is early words for communication. Is a symbol of representation.

That also reflect that in my culture. Every different knot has different meaning. Is a symbol of present like a wish, a blessing, a ritual or a place.

Which i found from Knot. In other hand to introduce its culture position. it also could be shown for twisting and bridge people heart to heart expression.

These symbols are situated within homes, streets, and communal environments, like traces left behind. They do not wait for rituals to begin; instead, they persist through time, encountered and re-encountered through daily movement. In this repetition, wishes are no longer momentary expressions, but beliefs preserved by space itself.

I often encounter these symbols unintentionally. They ask not to be interpreted, yet through looking, they awaken a sense of familiarity that resists clear explanation. This resonance does not belong solely to personal memory, but to a deeper cultural echo—as if these symbols have always been there, quietly waiting to be seen again.

Colour, shape, and gesture become the clues they leave behind. They point toward desires that remain unspoken, and they form my own way of offering blessings. Between seeing and presenting, I am not documenting symbols, but affirming the continued presence of hope.

The processes of abstraction and standardization did not diminish expressive power; instead, they enabled characters to hold complex meanings within concise structures. Through radicals, components, and spatial relationships, Chinese characters construct meaning in a non-linear, non-temporal manner. Writing thus becomes a site where narrative relations are embedded, rather than merely a tool for linguistic transcription.

I want to combine with the evolution of Hanzi with the objects within its specific meaning.

Most of Chinese Characters present the meaning inspired by the shape, is a visual symbol.

This serves as the narrative structure for my work. Combined with my collection of Hanzi images, it becomes a truly languageless, purely visual narrative.

Hezi (composite characters) are a visual form of symbolic writing created by merging multiple complete Chinese characters into a single structure. Rather than prioritizing pronunciation or standardized usage, they emphasize perception and conceptual understanding. Hezi emerge from the need to condense complex ideas and collective desires into a unified visual form. Meaning is generated through spatial relationships rather than linear language, where the act of “combining” itself becomes symbolic—signifying wholeness, harmony, and intensified meaning.

To make visual functions as a cognitive apparatus, create abstract concepts, complex relationships, or invisible systems perceptible and thinkable through form, structure, and interaction.

For example like the family trail in the gallery. Family Trails offered by the gallery—often framed around themes of investigation and discovery—guide visitors to search for clues, answer questions, and form connections while engaging with portraits. This structure transforms viewing into a cognitive process: through guided steps, viewers gradually understand relationships between individuals, history, and visual details. In this context, artworks function as cognitive frameworks for organising information and constructing meaning.

Within a cognitive educational framework, the value of art lies not in the content it conveys, but in its capacity to construct environments where thinking can occur. Artistic practice is thus understood as a cognitive tool—one that uses visual form, structured tasks, and participation to teach viewers how to see, how to understand, and how to generate meaning.

This project focuses on cognitive learning toys and spatial learning tools as a means of creating learning environments for young audiences that minimise direct intervention and allow learners to encounter knowledge more directly. I regard narrative as a fundamental tool that supports human learning. By embedding narrative structures into design, learning is transformed from passive reception into a perceptual exploration. Through artistic and design practices, cognitive learning frameworks are constructed in which knowledge unfolds through space, behaviour, and sensory engagement, fostering deeper understanding.

At the initial stage of the project, attention will be given to human sensory systems and their multiple modes of information reception, including sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Cognitive formation emerges from interactions across these sensory media. Through observing public spaces such as community libraries, museums, and botanical gardens, I noted that these environments often provide auxiliary learning tools for children. While serving different content—such as collections or botanical knowledge—these tools share a common aim: to stimulate curiosity and associative thinking, subtly cultivating children’s spatial awareness and observational abilities.

Across Project 1, 2, and 3, I have explored experiments involving symbols, metaphors, and associative narratives. In my artistic practice, objects, symbols, and written forms are not treated merely as visual elements, but as cognitive methods for communicating ways of understanding Chinese characters. Images do not simply carry meaning; they function as mediators that guide viewers toward forming cognitive pathways rather than delivering predetermined conclusions.

This methodological approach will continue to inform my future practice. Cognitive psychology suggests that human judgement is largely shaped by early learning experiences, through which individuals autonomously construct and refine their own systems of understanding. Within this process, the creator assumes a role akin to that of an educator—not to explain content directly, but to design bridges that facilitate communication and comprehension. By structuring visual systems, rhythms, and relationships, artistic practice becomes a means of establishing the conditions under which cognition can occur. This position extends from the construction of understanding toward a critical awareness of how understanding itself is formed and deconstructed, allowing cognitive education and critical reflection to coexist within creative practice.

symbol and the object it represents remains

recognizable. This pictographic relationship—

where shape and image mutually inform

meaning offers an effective approach for

learners of Chinese to understand and

remember characters.

They have been used for thousands of years as a means of communication, and over the last century, with the explosion in international travel, they have become an essential tool for word-free global navigation.

The creation of these tiny signposts however, is far more complex than their simple form would suggest.

With the help of Daikoku Daigo, Board Member at Nippon Design Center and project lead for ‘Experience Japan Pictograms’, a programme aimed at enhancing the tourism experience of visitors to Japan, we look at the key things to bear in mind when creating visual language.

and were used for a variety of purposes including religious texts,

funerary inscriptions and administrative documents. As stylized pictures,

they often took the form of objects or living creatures. Hieroglyphs

could represent whole words or concepts, or they could function as

phonetic symbols representing sounds.

‘For me, pictograms are a form of considerate design, supporting the quality of an experience. In particular, I feel that pictograms are a form of hospitality as they can convey meaning in an easy-to-understand way to people of different ages, cultures, and languages, and support intuitive communication.

‘When you see pictograms, you naturally understand where to go or how to use something, creating a sense of both security and freedom of movement. They are a “friendly point of contact” between space and society.’

A well-documented example of pictograms being employed to do the job of supporting hospitality was at the first ever Olympic Games to be held in Asia – Tokyo 1964. With so many visitors expected from all over the world, there was concern over how athletes and spectators might navigate a country whose language they did not speak. Several sets of pictograms were designed, one of which helped visitors to find their way around Tokyo, while another enabled them to easily identify the 19 different sports on the programme.

‘The best pictograms do not assert themselves. In theatre, they are like supporting actors who add depth to the story; in music, they are like the rhythm section that creates the groove. Well-designed pictograms transcend cultural boundaries and become universally understood. However, at the same time, their design reflects the values, worldview, and even the humour of the culture from which they originate. This is why pictograms are so profound.’

that enables understanding to emerge through self-directed learning

and direct visual communication. The narrative structure was

constructed around the historical evolution of Chinese characters and

the symbolic meanings of pictographs, and was ultimately presented

through a paper-based, page-turning format that transforms viewing

into a sequential cognitive process. By retracing historical development,

objects function not merely as carriers of information but reveal their

own narrative capacity. It is important to note that this practice does

not propose a systematic method for learning Chinese characters;

rather, it explores an alternative pathway to understanding from the

perspective of art and design. Different disciplines offer different entry

points into cultural and linguistic interpretation, and this process has

allowed me to reassess Chinese characters in new ways. Reflecting on

the work, I recognise the need to more clearly define analytical

perspectives, positionality, and the balance between provocation and

subjective output at the early stages of future projects. Furthermore,

the use of display and spatial strategies within physical works remains

an area for development. By extending the practice through interaction

design and immersive environments, the application of cognitive

education could be amplified, allowing narratives of culture and

language to continue unfolding through autonomous learning.