Team

Myself 

Materials

Chairs, Plexiglas, Sharpie Markers, Yellow Thread, Adobe Suite

My ROle

Researcher, Creative, Designer

Goals/ Objectives

• What qualifies a “little moment’

• What does it look like, feel like, taste and smell like?

• Is it tangible, a fleeting moment?

• How to understand your little moments and when they happen

• How to better appreciate your little moments

Development

This project took a million twists and turns before it evolved into the finished project you see. After the initial explorations, I didn’t have a direction I was really interested in taking the project; I hadn’t found my answers just yet. 

After all my research and explorations, I realized I wasn’t taking a close enough look at the project and the objective I wanted. This was a purely personal project and I’d done nothing to really expose my own little moments to better understand what they are. So I started to document the highlights of my everyday life, focusing on what were more than just the happy or positive moments, but the moments that brought me actual joy. The moments where I wanted to evaporate into air to fully embody and be in the moment. Those were the moments I emphasized - now to figure out what to do with them. 

After a month, I’d narrowed down to 21 little moments - my age at the time. These little moments were seemingly unnotable: fresh sheets after freshly shaved legs, keeping the peel of a clementine in one piece, taking off a bra after a long day, etc. That was, until I shared them with others. Sharing my little moments empowered a community on commonality that I hadn’t previously known. From the connection made with others, I felt so emboldened - these little moments weren’t just for me, they were for everyone and I wanted to share them.

The final experiment before the final output was to monumentalize these little moments and connect the viewers together in their experiences. I did this by cutting a recycled 8’ tall cardboard cylinder into three panels (21 moments between three panels), categorizing them into similarities, then writing the shared little moments in narrations, connecting on with another. I used yellow sumi ink to highlight the little moments within the narratives. This paved the way for the finished project.

Outcome

After a year of experimentation and failure, I finally came to my finished project. I’d finally decided to focus on my own little moments, but trying to include all my life’s little moments proved to be impossible, so I focused on my college career. I noticed how most of my little moments were predominantly with my roommates, but the time, place, and how they happened varied. After collecting, categorizing, understanding and appreciating the little moments shared between the roommates, here is what came of it… 

A chair was chosen to represent each roommate in the honor of pulling up a chair with each other. By placing the chairs behind Plexiglass panels, the moments are seen in prestige; worthy of preservation. However, to keep the chairs from looking closed off from the viewers, the sides are open. This welcomes the viewer to enjoy and relate to our little moments. 

By creating a “looking glass” effect of our little moments, it allows the viewer for personal reflection of their own little moments. Little moments were written to show some examples to the viewer. The personality traits written above each chair tell the audience a snippet of information for each roommate and how we each relate to one another. The letters were drawn on with paint markers, based on the font family Univers to keep the typography structure but still have a personal touch. 

I neutralized the color scheme to grayscale to unify the elements with color. Yellow accurately expressed the happiness of these little moments and the memories we had created. The different styles of chairs represent each roommate. The yellow thread used to connect the chairs represent the thread of conversation between us.

This project is a visual representation of my little moments and I hope it will be an inspiration for the audience to become more aware of their little moments in life.

Research/ Insight

The beginning of the project started with experiments that explored different avenues of how the project could develop over the next year. This stage was based solely on exploration to see what was of interest. These experiments included; painting and drawing of what I imagined little moments to look like, surveying others on what little moments were collectively considered to be, studying body language, watching physical activities and their effect on the psyche, writing out previously identified little moments to categorize, exploring nostalgic toys and their effect, collaging from personal photography. 

The second stage of research was focused on tattoos and their relation with commemorating the moments in our lives. I was interested in the permanence and connection tattoos show. During this research phase, I visited tattoo shops where I shadowed artists and interviewed the patrons to listen and document the stories of their tattoos. I learned patrons had a deeply intense connection to their tattoos and the reasoning behind getting them. 

Some of my biggest inspirations came from Timothy Goodman, Jessica Walsh and Stefan Sagmeister in regards to their large scale projects and the personal touch from a physical attribute to the project (hand writing).

Setbacks

The development of my thesis, while liberating, was one of the hardest projects I’ve ever had to curate. I say this because it was completely self-relevant, focused on self-discovery and something that I could only do myself. 

There was a moment in this project where I thought I’d had a final outcome in mind. It was in this week’s time that I attended the current seniors’ thesis show where I saw my idea had already come to fruition - one of the seniors had all but created what I thought my own thesis could be. I had been so enveloped with looking at outside inspiration, I hadn’t taken the time to look at those closest to me. So yet again, the project took a turn. 

Once I finished my tattoo research phase, I started working towards how to develop a performance piece. This plan quickly fell apart when I realized I would need to hire a tattoo artist for the piece since I couldn't tattoo myself (the original plan), then I would need to finalize the tattoo itself, and find a patron to receive the tattoo. At this time I realized I was focusing too much on the tattoo process and not the little moments, so I moved on.