ANGELA GAO
https://angelagdesign.com




Project Overview
Since 13 years old, I could remember almost all of my dreams. Sometimes I could still recall dreams from almost 10 years ago.
Among all these dreams, I kept having recurring dreams. Most of them are nightmares. The most memorable ones are 1. I got pregnant and 2. I have to take college entrance exams again.
I am a millenial and was born and raised in China, I would say the stereotype of Chinese people pay a lot of attention to exams and school is partially true. 
Among all the exams, the college entrance exam is always considered to be the most important one. It is also considered as the turning point in our lives. 
In 2019, I designed a little pop-up show and showcased shared experience East Asians have about their life changing exam. Because even after graduating for so many years, the suffocating feelings I have towards the exam is still a nightmare trigger for me. 
This work, became the inspiration of my thesis project.  
After came to Pratt, in the dialogues I had with my classmates who have similar cultural background as I do, I surprising found out that, a lot of us had the same dream of participating in the exam again and again.  
The nightmare study begins.


Reference from the previous pop-up show




                                                         
Why Dreams?Dreaming might be a unique human experience, and we remember certain dreams for a LONG time, and it is more likely that they are nightmares and recurring dreams.  
Due to Kineviz’s article posted in 2021: DreamCatcher: Deep Learning and Graph Analytics for the Dreamscape(2.), people’s dreams share certain similarities. It is possible that people who belong to the same or similar cultural backgrounds are more likely to explore the collective identity and situation that affects them in the dream patterns.   
As a member of the east Asian community, I started my dream exploration journey: almost a hundred nightmares and recurring dreams, demonstrated a bigger picture of East Asians’ nightmare stories: what is haunting us as a whole? What are we secretly suppressing in our heart? I listen to the whispers in the night, and observe my community from their dreams.  
It is alomst a crime scene investigation, my “evidence” contains 3 parts.


The dictionary of haunted east Asians





For the research, I collected more than 100 nightmares from different east Asians and put them into a little booklet, and named it <The Dictionary of Haunted East Asians>. For the interior, I used translucent paper to print the dreams on it: dreams are unpredictable, blurry, just like the paper that makes the text only half visible...
I also found a safe place to put the booklet: I cut a “hole” in the book and put the booklet inside, just like a secret hidden in another secret.
By documenting, analysing, and listen to a lot of stories, certain types of dreams stood out.






The top dreams Among 100 dreams I collected, the ones related to family is the most “popular” ones.
Silent father, control freak mother, siblings, being asked to get married as soon as possible and have kids as soon as possible, being asked to go back to hometown, coming out in front of the whole family... 
I interviewed 7 individuals who would like to share their stories in my book. Each story became the inspiration of each resin tableware I made. But why tableware? Bacause it reminds people of the family dinner that will happen in almost every east Asian family.
The dinner table can almost be considered as a metaphor: where all the conversations happen. Tears, confusion and all of the unspeakable secrets, are sealed in the food, become permanently silent. Observe the tablewares and find out more stories.
Click here to read the related thesis article: Cry me...a family portrait






The second top dream
It is almost a stereotype that east Asians are afraid of exams. In the dictionary of haunted east Aisnas, dreams about college entrance exams and school life  occupied the second highest position of the dream categories. Certain triggering elements will make people immediately panic: exam papers, answer sheets, a countdown clock...all of these above can remind east Asians of their high school life or in general, high pressure students’ lives.  
I as a result replicated an “exam.” with carefully designed artifacts related to exams and school life, which include: A. an exam paper, which is a imitation of an English exam, in the form of Chinese college entrance exam. On the exam paper, multiple details remind people of a “dream”. B. a clock. With texts written on it, reminds the viewers of the tight high school schedules, a breathless remind of the life east Asians have. C. an answer sheet and a confidential folder that contains the paper and the answer sheet.
Click here to read the related thesis article: Wake up, you’re failing your exam.



The exam


On top of all the artifacts, I also designed an “exam” for whoever is interested. Participants are supposed to take the exam alone on a little desk. Interesting observations are made during this time, the test content is the listening part of an English exam I created, the in-between time of each audio clip is fairly short, and the ipad playing the audio is right in front of the participants. Even though the participants could stop the audio at anytime, none of them did so. They panickily continued the exam until they realized that they can not finish it. It is interesting to see how such major events in their lives slowly shaped people’s behaviors, and left them with a permanent mark.



The book
My thesis book design is not “eye catching”. It has a velvet texture cover design, which is all black color; it doesn’t have a title on it; it doesn’t have the author’s name on it.
This is what I want for my thesis book: dreams are not the things you talk about in your daily life, they are almost “invisible”. It is a mysterious secret book that only people who are curious care about. 
I chose Bodoni, a serif typeface that is elegant but sophisticated, reminds people of old novels. At the same time, the artifacts I made for the thesis project were put in the book as paper based sculptures: the file folders and the exam paper were printed on the book pages, readers can read through the book as if they were looking at the artifacts themselves.
Click here to read the conclusion chapter of the book



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