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LCF24: Yidan Xu's "Divergence of the Normalities"

Hand playing with Yidan Xu's Divergence of Normalities Interactive Sound Box

Written byLubna Hussain
Published date 26 July 2024

We are thrilled to spotlight Yidan Xu, a talented undergraduate student in BA (Hons) Fashion Visual Merchandising and Branding. Yidan’s journey into the fashion world began with aspirations of becoming a garment designer, but her path evolved during her foundation course in 2019. Inspired by her tutor Suzanne, a set designer, Yidan discovered a passion for visual merchandising. This field’s fusion of digital and physical creativity captivated her, leading her to explore new techniques and materials.

Yidan's final year project, "Divergence of the Normalities", exemplifies her innovative spirit as it delves into the emotional atmospheres experienced by individuals with emotional disorders, aiming to cultivate empathy and understanding through an immersive set and sound design.

Today, we take a deeper dive into Yidan Xu's compelling project, "Divergence of the Normalities," exploring the intricate intersections of visual merchandising, emotional resonance, and innovative design.

**Hand going through Divergence of Normalities Leaflet with Sound Box in background | Yidan Xu BA (Hons) Fashion Visual Merchandising and Branding 2024**

What was the initial spark or inspiration behind your final year project, "Divergence of the Normalities"?

This project mainly focuses on fostering mutual understanding between people with emotional disorders and others. I noticed that more and more of my friends around me suffer from depression and anxiety. Despite my efforts to understand and listen to why they feel this way, some of the torment they experience, including somatization symptoms, is beyond my empathy.

In 2023, I watched a TV show and was struck by a line that said, “If a person who can't lift a spoon is asked to lift a spoon, it is actually a kind of bullying to them.” I was quite shocked at the time because being able to lift a spoon is a basic premise and common sense that you don't usually think about. If other people's living conditions are beyond our cognition, we will never understand their feelings. This was one of my most important epiphany moments last year, which is what helped me come up with the theme of my final major project.

Your project explores the emotional atmosphere through set and sound design. Can you elaborate on how you developed this concept and what motivated you to focus on emotional disorders?

During my research, I discovered that some of Merleau-Ponty’s works aligned very well with my theme. His quote serves as the starting point for my project: "Doctors ask patients and children questions about the adult world and measure how far they deviate from normal behavioural patterns. Such habitual thinking often leads people to use ineffective approaches when supporting friends or relatives with mental illness. Despite our desire for them to recover quickly and return to normal life, the increasing gap between their experience and that of others can worsen their condition, making it challenging to navigate the constantly shifting real world. This creates a destructive cycle."

In his works, Merleau-Ponty highlights that Cubist painters, whom he considers the "most honest", demonstrates the ever-changing moments that inspired my spatial design. Sound, serving as a substitute for language, emerged as the medium best suited to resonate with and connect people in this project.

Yidan Xu Full Sound Scape Space Diagram in shape of a guitar — **Yidan Xu Full Sound Scape Space Diagram | Yidan Xu BA (Hons) Fashion Visual Merchandising and Branding 2024**

Yidan Xu AI Imagery of outdoor space of brick wall building, red doors and green space — **Yidan Xu AI Imagery of Outdoor Space | Yidan Xu BA (Hons) Fashion Visual Merchandising and Branding 2024**

In what ways do you hope "Divergence of the Normalities" will impact the audience, particularly in terms of understanding and empathising with individuals with emotional disorders?

From a Visual Merchandising perspective, this project appears finished as a comprehensive campaign encompassing branding, location, spatial design, and interactive experiences. However, as an experimental art project of mine, to me it remains unfinished.

In my vision, I want to gather diverse narratives from individuals with emotional disorders, capturing their nuanced feelings. These stories will be woven into sound compositions I have crafted for each emotion, using their experiences as lyrics. The installation thus becomes an instrument that plays out real stories and emotions. My spatial design seeks to immerse the audience in a shared cultural context through music, enabling everyone to grasp the emotional essence conveyed by each note. Ultimately, I aspire to achieve an artistic experiment where mutual understanding transcends language barriers.

Could you elaborate on your approach to sound design in the project? It seems like a deeply personal aspect for you, how did this process shape the project and your creative journey?

I would love to explain more about my sound design. While it may not be as prominent in the project as the spatial and installation aspects, I've invested significant effort in crafting unique timbres. I also put a lot of effort into designing my timbres. Each of them has two synthesisers, one is a granulator, and the other is a wavetable. I put six recording samples that I recorded in my life when I felt a certain emotion, for example, the happiness sound is the meowing of my cat, and the anger sound is a hammer hitting a nail.

The waveforms in the wavetable are selected to represent different emotions as the basic tone of the sound. So, the sound design is the part that has the most to do with me and made the project more about me.

What was it like collaborating with the Danish lifestyle brand Hay for this project? How did their aesthetics and values influence your work?

Mutual understanding, safety, and diversity are the feelings I aim to convey through my projects, encapsulated largely by the concept of "home." Viewing the world as our collective home makes it easier to comprehend, accept, and embrace people different from ourselves.

Choosing to collaborate with a lifestyle brand and selecting the Museum of the Home as the project's venue were deliberate decisions to facilitate audience connection and foster understanding and acceptance of diversity.

The aesthetics of Hay had a significant impact on the design of my space and installation. Their products feature rich, deeply saturated colours, which I utilised to create spaces with varying emotional atmospheres. While different colours may symbolise various emotions, it's important to note that negative emotions are not inherently bad. Likewise, products featuring colours associated with negative emotions are not inherently negative themselves. This perspective resonates with Hay's inclusive design philosophy, advocating for the acceptance of every emotion and the individuals who experience them.