A fashion story of light and shadow

Abstract

“A Fashion Story of Light and Shadow” is a book recorded my thesis artwork and its research background. The main topic of my thesis work is light and shadow as well as its related handicraft— traditional Chinese shadow puppet opera. Based on my observations and own perspectives about light and shadow art and design works, and personal experiences of light and shadow, I came up with the idea for my thesis. The purpose is to discover the creative possibilities of approaching light and shadow, and to think about the meanings of light and shadow behind a piece of artworks or designs which are from successful artists and designers who use light and shadow to create art and design. Furthermore, absorb the knowledge from the research and try to find my own visual language to interpret light and shadow by combining them in my own design of fashion.

The outcomes include the book and a shadow art fashion collection. The book consists two parts, the first part is the observations about light and shadow in different angles. The second part shows the behind story, principle, theories and working process of my thesis work.

The full content of my thesis started with my personal perspectives of light and shadow as the starting point of the research. Then continued researching the fundamental and historical knowledge of light and shadow. After that I studied and analyzed contemporary light and shadow artworks including light and shadow related design works. These works are from different artists and designers including artists such as Tim Noble & Sue Webster, as well as James Turrell, designers such as Tord Boontje and Hussein Chalayan. Their principle of handling light and shadow helped me develop my own idea more fruitful.

After that, I moved to the research of traditional Chinese shadow puppet opera. This part helped me understand light and shadow related folk art widely in diversity of aspects including cultural value, technical point of view and deep relationship between it and my own collection. In the end is the practical part which recorded the experimenting and developing process of my works. Also, the final part includes the description of the process how I developed the idea; how I executed the works; how I solved the problems and finally, how I drew the conclusion.