Hongming Shen is a textile designer who likes to explore a variety of materials and pays attention to the collision and contrast generated by different colours and textures. She is keen on applying materials to tell alternative stories of her heritage and Chinese culture. Hongming is trying to find a peaceful corner during this journey much like a tiny drop of water, which can be involuntarily carried into the ocean by the current. So she is finding a space by which there is a harmony being created within the practice of her textiles, towards culture, the planet, and people.
Hongming Shen
RE-VIVE: //“FLAWORLD”
a brief time journey to the past
Growing up in a slow-paced city in China, I am often easily attracted to subtle traces, traces of time. This habit gradually shaped me into becoming more nostalgic.
In my childhood memory, the most profound are the enamel utensils of grandmother’s home and the ostentatious floral decorations. Flowers have been the most impactful, their electrifying design, symbolises beauty, life, and hope for the future.
Although the enamel has been replaced, I still miss the old days when people cherished everything they had despite lack of resources.
This era of the anthropocene is at the peak of the earth's metabolism, the production and consumption value are of damaging nature, disposable products emerge in endless cycles, mainly all kinds of plastic and paper packaging. In this project I am using Recycled HDPE, a common waste material to bring back my version of “enamel” and creating an alternative value system towards our relationship towards plastic.
Animation of my childhood memories
sketchbook
3D sculpting
Recycling HDPE plastic
"Plastic enamel"
final outcomes of FLAWORLD