Special thanks to Anthony Chu who has showed me so much, who has opened up my mind… Thanks to Chandra, Sulman, Gupal, Dol and everyone from Kimberly Furniture Company and Tanjong Minyak who allowed me to observe them…
Great thanks to the people who have participated to the user testing and spent long hours with me on a Saturday
afternoon…
Special thanks to my sister and my boyfriend who have helped me so much…
The last 4 weeks of my project have changed my design vision and questioned my personal positioning in design.
I think there is a lot we can “contribute” as a designer to the world, especially for people from “the unconnected” community. But, implementing new technology and high-tech gadget into their life might not be the best solution. ^^
Regarding my incompletion of the design project, a lot of people ask me,
“Will you continue to develop this project?”
“What about the postcard camera proposal?”
” What will you do next?”
… I do not have the answers… but I have questions…
Are we trying to help NOKIA to expand product range into the developing country? or Are we trying to help the “unconnected”to get in touch with their loves one?
The project starts up by identifying the ‘unconnected’ people, and the meaning of ‘non-verbal’ communication’, and discovering the unique communication methods offered by Anthony Chu, the photographer.
This project went through various phases of design. From ideation to development till refinement, but after the user testing exercise, instead of proposing a design solution which at that stage was not mature, a decision of continuing the search was made.
Although the project requirements were not met with the deliverables of documentaries but it has definitely gave me a clearer insight of immigrants life and expanded my view.
More questions are raised, more doubts are highlighted with the continuity of research. Immigrants from Nepal and Bangladesh are connected with their friends around them, but they lack a close contact with their families back home. Their family members are the one who are the real “unconnected”, with very limited communication infrastructures.
The real ‘unconnected’ in Nepal or Bangladesh were identified, but the only bond which connects them is the photographer, Anthony Chu.
The room is only 1 meter height and it is shared by 3 residents. Most immigrant workers spend at least 3 years in this little space. When we visited them, they were very happy. They didn’t feel obligated with the cameras.
During our observation in one of the factory accommodation, we were invited by Bangladeshi immigrants into their room. We met a group of them, sitting on the floor, awaiting us to interview them.
After spending a few days with the immigrants, I found that my project lacked some grounded research and I realised so much more. New information, new sight, new exposure, and new aspiration strike. Anthony Chu’s interaction and anticipation with the immigrants encouraged me to go on my study.
Instead of continue to realize the concept, I chose to follow my heart and curiosity to find out more about the life of the ‘unconnected’ community and the bridge that Anthony has built for them.
At this stage of the project, a decision to continue the design was forfeited. A stronger insight has extended the limits in design from a design solution into a documentary.
More interviews and observations were carried out with the immigrants. The intention was to comprehend their social contacts as immigrants in Malaysia. On the other hand, shadowing Anthony Chu had become part of the plan to grasp further his daily contribution to them.
Four documentaries were delivered:
1. User Experience, documented the ‘postcard camera’ exercise that were carried out with the Nepalese in Malaysia. (which is shown in the previous post)
2. A day with Anthony Chu (the photographer), documented his daily routine as a messenger and his interaction with the immigrants.
3. Visiting the Immigrants Accommodations. documented the life of immigrants in Malaysia.
4. A Message from Home. a short clip quoted from the video that Anthony shot during his previous trip to Nepal and Bangladesh as a messenger.
The exercise was carried out on the following day with a setting of using a digital camera. The users were asked to shoot their own pictures using the set-up camera on tripod. After the shooting session, the images from the camera were printed onto a pre made postcard. Then, the immigrants were ask to write and post the postcards with their pictures on it. This session was a success. The immigrants appreciate it a lot and I’ve learnt a tremendous experience with them.
Here is the link to the user experience video in YouTube.
Today, I spend 5 hours with a lot of Nepalese, talking to them and understanding their life in Malaysia. I carried out a my first Postcard Camera activity with them. The objectives of this activity is to understand the immigrants and to visualise the Postcard Camera concept with the participans of the Nepali.
This activity started at 2 in the afternoon. I find that, explaining myself to them was really tough because I couldn’t speak Nepali, but luckily I’ve got help from Anthony to be my translator. Beside Anthony, I’ve got a special assistant, my younger sister who should be enjoying her Christmas Holidays from her work as an E&E engineer, but instead she chose to drive me around and help me in every little things that I couldn’t manage alone during the whole activity.
Thank you YouYan (my younger sister) and Anthony (the photographer) for their help.
I will elaborate more about the activity in the next post.
Pirikura, the sticker photo booth is very popular in Asia for the last decade. It was developed by Atlus and Sega. Pirikura is still very popular in Japan, where it was created and spread throughout East Asia to Taiwan, South Korea, Hongkong, China, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Some have begun appearing in United States and Canada although they failed to make any impression in Europe when it was induced in mid 1990s.
Pirikura had now evolved into Videkura which is a video booths, which produce, create, and edit videos made available via mobile phone or internet, and can be easily shared with friends. If you are interested in Videkura, check out the following link, http://www.kilian-nakamura.com .
Today, while I was browsing through the internet using the keyword “postcard camera”… I found this…
This is a “postcard kiosk” which allows users to create instant postcards featuring their own digital camera photos. http://www.memorycardmachine.com/kiosks.htm. They named it the Memory Card Machine. It was patented since year 2003 by a company in Washington, USA.
I planned to carry out a video documentation, interviews and a small exercise with Anthony Chu, the postman photographer and the immigrants in Melaka, Malaysia.
Video Documentation & Interviews
The video documentation will be focusing on Anthony’s work and his dreams. Some parts of the video will be capturing on the life of immigrants in Malaysia. The interview will be mainly focusing on the view of Anthony’s family and friends regarding his job. In the meantime, I will also interview some immigrants which had used Anthony’s services and describe about their life as an immigrant in Malaysia.
The Postcard Camera Exercises
I planned to build a few pinhole cameras and try it with a few immigrants (3 – 5 tests will be sufficient). Then, I will set up a temporary photo taking booth outdoors for the a larger group of immigrants to shoot a free photo and print it onto postcards. Hopefully, at the end of this exercise, they will fill up the postcard and send it out on the same day (10-20 postcards photos). *stamps will be provided.
