Lydia Chan

0:00 [Applause]

0:05 hi I'm lydia today's my birthday yay [Applause]

0:12 [Laughter]

0:16 thank you no no no no please no no [Applause]

0:26 oh my god [Applause]

0:31 [Applause]

0:39 oh my god I did not expect that I was just nervous. So I said a random thing yeah.

0:46 So I'm a set designer I'm a multi multi-disciplinary artist I make all sorts of like funny things. And I would characterize my work as being narrative building for me it's really important to be able to tell a story with the objects that I make the spaces that I design yeah that's sort of my work so today instead of talking about set design because I'm not gonna talk about design I wanna talk about I'm gonna talk about my art.

1:17 So this is some of the art that I've made it all started when I was nine I well I'm chinese my parents are from hong kong and when I was nine which is year two thousand I guess so now you know how old I am it was really popular to make these like little beaded pikachus and like beaded dogs and silly things like that.

1:38 And I was really into learning all these like little beaded techniques and then when I was 18 I was on the bus. And I thought wouldn't it be so cool if I could use my beads and make like a giant monster on my chest so that was like before I moved to london I kind of started experimenting with my beads again and this is sort of the result of that I just kept making bigger and more elaborate beads because I'm a maximalist so more is not enough just needs to be more bigger better and so they became so big and so elaborate that I feel like they sort of expanded beyond like jewelry and it became sort of like body sculpture so you can see here.

2:20 This is sort of what it's like it's like an alien latched onto someone's face or on someone's neck for me like cartoons space aliens like all those things are sort of like an inspiration that I've been thinking about. And I care about for my whole life like I'm turning 30 this year but like I still watch nickelodeon cartoons I still like spongebob I still like fairly odd parents which by the way is like the longest running cartoon on the on tv after simpsons or something which is pretty crazy but yeah.

2:51 So like that's kind of the stuff that I think about. And it's something that is sort of I something I want to explore for basically my entire life. So this is the origins of my work.

3:00 So this is like the beginning and this is me making my beads on my bed so the photos are like very glamorous and very refined but then.

3:10 This is just me like on a dirty mattress like you know beating with all the beads on the thing.

3:15 But I think that's kind of how I would characterize my practice one part of me is like very into the fantasy and like where things are going and I can like push all my ideas and like think of the craziest stuff I could possibly make but the other part of me is very firmly firmly ♪

3:37 planted in logic and reality and systems and like sort of the meticulous details and planning and all the things that are that I need to think about and consider in order to make this thing happen so the monsters are very sort of organic and the shapes are very soft but then if you think about like the beaded technique I have to think about like the squares the hexagons the pentagons and all the sort of mathematical shapes that form this shape so I think that's sort of how my work is like I beat on my bed it's just like chaotic but then I'm also very considerate about the shapes and the techniques that I need in order to achieve my fantastical ideas this is me shooting my beads in my studio I think it's really important as a creative to think about like let your mind explore all the like fantastical ideas but and but you have to know when to be considered and when to be de-oriented and when to be like logical so I painted these random backgrounds just like with random wood that I found in my studio so again that's like just me being chaotic me experimenting me slapping some colors together and like just using my intuition to kind of like create just something that makes me feel good but then you have to like think about the bees like when I when I think about the bees and I have to think about like the logic and how am I going to suspend these beads in you know the mid-air so I can shoot them like so you have to be able to understand when to be intuitive and when to be creative and when to be you know pragmatic and logical and like very deeply rooted in reality this is my exhibition for now gallery like I was telling you before space and aliens and cartoons is something that I'm exploring my whole life.

5:21 So I started about out on the bus thinking it'd be really cool if I could have a monster on my chest and then it evolved into making bigger monsters crazier monsters and then. I was like where do these monsters live they live in space right.

5:33 So let's make a big space immersive exhibition so an opportunity came up from now gallery for me to design like an immersive quote-unquote performance space and I was like you know what this is the time for me to like create the most lydia space ever. And so I propose to create this crazy alien universe as sort of like the end to the pandemic kind of so I envisioned that lockdown was sort of like you being stuck on a spaceship like an interstellar and then you kind of leave this spaceship and then you enter this crazy alien planet and everything is like all colorful and saccharine and saturated and like all new to you because you hadn't been outside in like a jillion years.

6:13 So this is my space this is what it looks like on the outside for me as a maximalist everything has to like every space is sort of an opportunity for you to like design a thing to consider a thing so like you know the from the walls to the ceiling the floors to the outside of this building like all of it is considered as like shapes and it's like a very full-on experience which is I think characteristic of my work.

6:39 So yeah this is the space this is how the design began so again like I was saying before you have to be like fantastical and push your ideas and like really sort of let yourself be free and expressive but then you have to be like rooted in reality and what is the reality this space is 1 300 square feet the ceiling height is 7 meters tall how am I going to fit all these things in this space to scale so that it makes sense works as an exhibition right.

7:04 So how I did that was I used sketchup to like draw a scale model of the actual gallery space and then I you know being old school hand drawing I printed it out.

7:18 And then I traced all my crazy monsters on it.

7:22 And so again this is the the expressive part where. I was just you know going to make all the dumb shapes whatever ha ha and do all the shapes and then but but but because I had already drawn the model in sketchup all my shapes when I rescan them back into the computer and then I apply it back in the sketchup will be to scale to the space and so I will know exactly how these crazy fantastical shapes fit into this 1 300 square foot space so this is the final sketchup model it looks insane but what you saw here is basically 99 what and what was built at the very end so I think it's important like to let yourself be crazy but then also be like this is what it's going to be we're going to nail it like no questions right.

8:11 So this is the sketchup model we did it it's a thing looks great and then.

8:17 I also had to pitch this to the gallery so like as much as they gave me this opportunity to like make a cool thing they were also like we have three other people so you gotta you gotta like blow our minds right I'm like okay okay okay I'll blur mine I'll go blurry right I got this okay.

8:32 So I had to do like the swanky renderings you do a little like digital walkthrough you gotta like see how cool this space is gonna be in real life I think a big part of being an artist is like knowing how to use visual communication to sell yourself to like help people understand like just the ridiculous chaotic craziness that's in your mind you have to be able to sort of tell people.

8:54 Actually it's crazy but I can make it happen it's going to be really cool you have to really convince people. And so making these digital renderings and making this digital walkthrough kind of help people understand just like wrap their heads around like what the design is going to be like and what it is that you're going to make for them. So that's the entrance and then. This is the exhibition.

9:11 This is one of the monsters that I created in the space and it's inspired by one of the beaded monsters that you saw in the first slide with like the face and the crazy mouth and the tongue so then after after I designed this and they approved me and they told me how much they love me I have to think about how I can materialize this crazy design into like the actual exhibition so again back to the logic the system you know the pragmatism of my work I because I had drawn out the design in sketchup everything is two scale measured to the t you know what it's going to be right.

9:51 So I took all the three dimensional shapes and then. I had to flatten them out into these giant three meter by 1.2 meter mdf sheets and then I lay them out as like a graphic design and then they get sent into a cnc machine which is like this computer machine that cuts out your shapes following your vector drawings but then what's so great about.

10:13 This is like because everything is too scale all the shapes that come out are exactly the same size as what it is in the model so what you see is what you get everything is like a done deal accuracy right.

10:24 So these are the shapes that came out from the cnc machine so again this is the chaos of my studio all the shapes are just like smashed around everywhere.

10:35 And then I'm like okay and I got to organize it I have to paint it.

10:38 And then so like knowing when to be accurate which is like to make sure that the design is to a t what you get and then knowing when to be crazy which is like I can just throw the shapes around everywhere it's not a big deal and then let them sort of speak to me.

10:52 And I'd like paint them and see how the colors work and you know like let my intuition sort of like drive the final result so you see here thousands of shapes I think I painted like a total of like 1 300 shapes with the help of my father and my friends and my best friend they all came and helped me paint shapes so we're painting all these crazy shapes and they're just like stacked is chaotic and then I booked a truck and we like shipped it all to the gallery but then so like this is all the intuition there's all the craziness it's all the chaos right.

11:21 But then after the chaos we go back to the gallery and then again we have to be pragmatic right all the shapes they stack up together how do they stack up how do they line up you have to organize the shapes in a way that like you know which ones are going to hang first which ones are going to hang second you know.

11:36 So that you can again find some kind of system to understand these 1 300 just random circles and how are they going to become this monster that I had originally designed so this is the process of hanging these shapes again pragmatism right mdf is heavy okay I don't know if you know like you lift an ikea shelf that shit's heavy right. So like you don't want like that stuff suspended like three meters above the ground and then like falls on someone's head you know I don't want to get sued I'm good so you have to calculate the surface area of the mdf and then calculate the density and then calculate how much that individual piece is going to weigh and then you have to think about how much each clip and airplane cable can you know how much weight each can take and then you have to figure out how many airplane cables each piece needs so you have to be like crazy and free and like but then you have to use pragmatism and physics and reality to be able to like you know materialize your design so that's a big part of my job my career what I think about is how can I when to be crazy and when to be intuitive and when to just like let myself be expressive and when to be pragmatic and understand physics and understand you know the boundaries of the universe essentially so this is the like these are the crazy shapes I've been exploring this is the design that I've made and this is sort of like the exhibition that I did that ended in the beginning of march I don't know if you guys saw it it was fun it's a nice space very popular with children by the way I think maybe my aesthetic just leans lends itself to being popular with children I don't know.

13:15 But these are some of the stickers that I design for the exhibition I think one of the things that I really wanted to talk about today besides the fact that like you can probably make some cool like just randomly in your bedroom and you don't have to be like have a lot of money or you know be super important or anything and just make cool stuff is that like if you have one idea it can be something really simple you can explore that and have various different iterations and develop it through your entire life.

13:42 And that's something that I think really worked for me I really like aliens I really like monsters I really like sort of like this idea of like grotesque things. And then really cute things.

13:53 And then kind of like smashing them together and creating these like cute but also kind of scary looking-ish monsters so it started off as beaded like shapes beaded sculptures it turned into some crazy immersive exhibition.

14:06 And now I'm making these stickers and who knows like maybe it'll be t-shirts maybe I'll make jewelry maybe it'll be like you know carpets maybe you know like for me it's about sort of like taking my design creating as many iterations of it developing it through my entire life and creating sort of like objects and like products and things that like you know anyone can buy and like participate in and embody and enjoy and it can bring like happiness and like pleasure to just like you know all sorts of different people.

14:36 So yeah that's me. That's my work thanks [Applause]