Object & Space project
In this 12-weeks project, I experimented two ideas initially, one was a cat café, another one was blossom cherry trees. When I finished first half of 6 weeks, I decided to carry on the idea of cat café, visiting different cat cafes over UK, meeting different cats, moreover, I also looked at customers who experienced their leisure time in a cat café, taking photos, playing with cats, talking to staff.
Not only the relationship between cats and the environment I observed but also cats and people, their interaction with other cats as well. It was complicated because I looked at different aspects within the limited time, normally I would allow to stay there in one hour, some of cafes would let you pay more entrance fee to extend your time of staying, but I wanted to challenge myself, seeing how much I could get in an hour. When I got 4 cafes left, I started to make some experiments regarding a book, which would be an informal book, could be more playful but delicate, just like a cat. Additionally, I always wanted to do a concertina book, then I did the relevant research, coming up another idea which inserted internal pages on it to create both portrait and landscape format in this concertina book. The inspiration of making a small size because I’ve got a bag which I couldn’t put A4 size in, neither than A5, so I designed the size should be smaller than A5. I separated three sections of selected images, images you could see on both sides of concertina are the environment of cat cafes, giving the location of idea to audience what I looked at is inside, then I put both cat portraits and images involving people and cats individually into internal pages, showing that cats are main residents, people are visitors. Finally, I picked up an image of outside of café, splitting into half, placing them into both front cover and back cover, telling the audience the story starts opening the door.
I am really pleased and proud of myself to make this such amazing and beautiful book. And I realized that I make photos for books, not for physical prints, it sounds odd but when I was thinking the reason of my images is hardly read when they placed together, you could tell there is something but also certainly missing, then when I put them into a book, it all makes sense, because the process of sequence, helping me re-producing and rethinking the meaning behind, clarify all the question. I love making things, specially a book, it cause to combine two elements together which are image and book, also, exploring possibilities for both of them. I am satisfied with the overall of whole process, it definitely is a great experience for me, no matter is making images or a book.
On the other hand, I was surprised that someone wished to buy my book (sorry, not going to say who is the person), it was unexpected for me, basically I did this project because I would like to see how far I am, also, for fun even there were some exist issue to overcome, generally I carried this project for myself, I didn't think of people would like it or not, but it proves that people appreciate my works and support what I do.
