Designers
Designers
Designers
The New Age of Cultural Transmission
Interactive digital archive weaving together collected cultural practices of Southeast/East Asia
Key Words
Designers
Amy Nguyen
SUMMARY
As a Viet-Chinese American born to immigrant parents, I had always struggled with staying connected to my cultural roots as my parents grew older and I spoke less of my mother tongue. Through talking to people in my community, visiting culturally significant sites and archival/media research, I discovered that it wasn't just me, but a significant portion of the Asian diaspora living in the West that struggled to remain rooted to their culture. I created an interactive digital archive, representing an amalgamation of traditional Southeast/East Asian practices from ancestral shrines to fruit bowl offerings in the form of a website.
challenge
The main stakeholder needs I identified was that a lot of cultural identity knowledge had a barrier of entry, whether it was either coated in academic jargon or overly aestheticized, I wanted to create a solution that was able to sit in the middle - where it was deeply informative with sourcing coming directly from community elders and cultural knowledge pioneers, but also engaging enough for all generations to interact with the resulted deliverable.
Outcome
My project takes the form of an interactive digital archive. I believe that for a generation that is becoming more technologically advanced, we must have equally advanced digitally platforms that are rooted in intentions to carry on the cultural identity markers for those who find there is a large barrier of entry into cultivating knowledge and tradition within our own community.
MEET THE Designers:
Amy Nguyen