My essential question was "Is knowing your identity important? Knowing your roots, does that create your identity?"
I chose my artwork to surround the subject of identity because I myself have struggled with the question "who am I". Most kids have the knowledge of knowing who their parents were/are, and what traits they get from where, and maybe even follow in there professional footsteps. I was adopted from China, and I in no way regret that, its just that, I've always had questions. Questions about who my biological parents are, why I was given up, and other "deeper" question like that. I recently went to China (June 2015) to visit six different cities/towns; Beijing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Taizhou, Guilin and Shanghai. (Not in that order.)
I was born in Taizhou, Jiangsu, China. While I was there I visited both my orphanage and my finding place. I also went on a search to find my birth parents. Identity is so important to me because it's something I lack (well, in the terms of knowing my roots (i.e family history)). I was interviewed and was on the news (Chinese of course) in hopes my birth parents were watching, no one stepped forward. I tried another tactic, I made signs of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be and hung them around Taizhou (with the help of the local police), hoping someone would recognize the little baby in the photo. Few people stepped forward claiming that they were my parents in hopes to get some type of "compensation" for "losing" me, I did however come across the people who found me at my finding place, but since then nothing else has come up.
So, knowing that; I originally was still going to do the silhouette, but not a regular solid black silhouette, one with writing. Writings that were filled with my own. As for the background, I wanted to do letters, sayings, or some type of 'thing' to highlight adoptees around the world, but when I looked up/researched articles to place in the background, I found a lot of hatred like essays. Essays like "my adoptive parents don't understand me" or just things that the adoptees resent about their parents, and I didn't want to highlight that in any way, shape or form (I didn't want that kind of negativity.)
Then someone suggested to do a "Jane Doe" type of twist on things, I'm interested in missing people cases and psychological thriller like things, so I tried. I hit another wall, because I didn't really know how to go about it, and it was nearing the end of the project, SO
I went with droplets of paint in the background, not the best, not the best quality, but definitely the least time consuming. So if I were to redo this project, I would definitely allow myself more time and plan it more thoroughly, than just ''winging'' MOST of it.
I chose my artwork to surround the subject of identity because I myself have struggled with the question "who am I". Most kids have the knowledge of knowing who their parents were/are, and what traits they get from where, and maybe even follow in there professional footsteps. I was adopted from China, and I in no way regret that, its just that, I've always had questions. Questions about who my biological parents are, why I was given up, and other "deeper" question like that. I recently went to China (June 2015) to visit six different cities/towns; Beijing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Taizhou, Guilin and Shanghai. (Not in that order.)
I was born in Taizhou, Jiangsu, China. While I was there I visited both my orphanage and my finding place. I also went on a search to find my birth parents. Identity is so important to me because it's something I lack (well, in the terms of knowing my roots (i.e family history)). I was interviewed and was on the news (Chinese of course) in hopes my birth parents were watching, no one stepped forward. I tried another tactic, I made signs of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be and hung them around Taizhou (with the help of the local police), hoping someone would recognize the little baby in the photo. Few people stepped forward claiming that they were my parents in hopes to get some type of "compensation" for "losing" me, I did however come across the people who found me at my finding place, but since then nothing else has come up.
So, knowing that; I originally was still going to do the silhouette, but not a regular solid black silhouette, one with writing. Writings that were filled with my own. As for the background, I wanted to do letters, sayings, or some type of 'thing' to highlight adoptees around the world, but when I looked up/researched articles to place in the background, I found a lot of hatred like essays. Essays like "my adoptive parents don't understand me" or just things that the adoptees resent about their parents, and I didn't want to highlight that in any way, shape or form (I didn't want that kind of negativity.)
Then someone suggested to do a "Jane Doe" type of twist on things, I'm interested in missing people cases and psychological thriller like things, so I tried. I hit another wall, because I didn't really know how to go about it, and it was nearing the end of the project, SO
I went with droplets of paint in the background, not the best, not the best quality, but definitely the least time consuming. So if I were to redo this project, I would definitely allow myself more time and plan it more thoroughly, than just ''winging'' MOST of it.