Have you ever been drawn to an object in a museum so strongly that you were intrigued about why? The first time I saw this object in the China gallery at the V&A, somehow it triggered an identity crisis for me as a Chinese graphic designer. I had never seen or noticed something that looked like this. I could not help myself standing in front of it and trying to catch any detail that I was familiar with. All I could associate with it was the ‘Western-style’ that I grew up with, which made me think, then who am I? Is there a boundary between cultures?

V&A China Collection, Room 44, The T.T. Tsui Gallery

The alter candlesticks set was born in Jingdezhen for the royal Daoism temple in the Qing Dynasty in 1741. In classic blue and white, the production supervisor was Ying Tang. The set is quite tall compared with regular, and each part was made separately during the firing process. When I looked at them individually, they looked like a daily object, a bowl, a pot, and a dish; the combination of these reminded me of the Max Dinnerware designed by Lella and Massimo Vignelli. When I focused on these little details, suddenly, I felt timeless across the space, and it became the secret treasure between me and the object. From the baluster form and the rococo style pattern, which could show the high aesthetic influence of Italy and France, all the details were designed based on the emperor's interests.

The lives of these two candlesticks were not fully on record, so I had to combine different resources and fill in some of my assumptions based on certain periods’ historical records. The V&A website shows it was gifted by Dorothy Bushell, and there are no further details about how she got this piece. The set was possibly staled and sold by the royal servant when the Qing Dynasty came to an end of its imperial position considering the time. According to what is written on the candlesticks, they specifically belong to a Daoist temple in Dongba, the east of Beijing, and one of the Five Tops. In 1949, the temple was partially destroyed; later on, it became a livestock shed for the production brigade and vanished fully during the Cultural Revolution. Nowadays, it is, unfortunately, unable to pinpoint the exact location and some researchers suggest it may located in a primary school, so these two candlesticks may be the only few pieces of evidence that prove the existence of the temple.

How about the afterlife? It could defined as when it reaches the end of its original usefulness as a part of the altar set. For these candlesticks, I use the last record date on the V&A Website, January 24, 2008. It has been placed in an open space and squeezed into a glass shelf with some other objects that have no connection between them. No one informed them why they were placed here forever and they chose to be silenced in the corner, seeing numerous people walking by from different ages, different countries, and different social statuses; after all, they once belonged and were worshipped by the royal family in the far east. To bring them back to certain narratives while curating is essential. From my observation and research, the object started to be willing to talk to me. The story behind it gives me a new perspective on the journey and history of it. I have never seen something like this in my life V&A has a unique taste for its collection of objects that were highly influenced by Western culture during certain trading periods. My understanding of cultural history has never been so dynamic; the object itself is the strongest evidence compared with all the literature history books, and it would not be distorted by anyone.

Practice Part I

In this research project, I use the reflective practice and polyvocal approach that comes from material culture studies as key methods. To observe my own subjective, emotionally driven processes use graphic design to critically reframe objects with my reflection practice in different ways as methodology. I bring this personal perspective as a foreigner for self-reflection to take part in the ongoing design process. At the same time, using polyvocal as a method of storytelling strategy that involves the strength of several perspectives communicating with the same fundamental idea, which is introducing a voice different to that of the “museum voice”.

Visiting museums seems to be a family hobby for me, from all the memories that I can remember since an early age, me and my mother had very different preferences for visiting. My mother always considers reading every single word that has been provided by the museum to be as crucial as actually observing the object to truly understand the exhibition, and I am totally on the opposite side. During my reflecting practice, I gradually developed a specific visiting method since I moved to London. When I visit the exhibition, I try to ignore the context that has been provided by the museum, the pre-overloaded information would infect my observing experience with the object, the text is sometimes boring and hard to digest and I often question what is the motive for the curator to bring certain narratives in to the context.

Inspired by Avani Tanya’s selective guide, Tanya as the artist-in-residence in the V&A’s South Asian Collection, invited people to share their understanding and connections with a few objects which could be found in several locations in the V&A Collection. Avani mentioned that the South Asian collection is mostly from a specific time when no contemporary art piece could be found, which brings the question ‘How does the India of the gallery relate to that other India—their India?’ I resonate strongly with the experience addressed in the guide, which is why, I chose to design a guide booklet as the start of my practice. At first, I decided my position was to face the needs of decolonisation, traditional museum collections have been challenged more than ever before. Object biography has been popular in material culture studies and museum studies, the practice of reflection is usually text base, and the combination with visual design may achieve a wider target audience group and the potential to break the cultural barrier, building the concept that visitors find their meaning from cultural experiences.

Although graphic design is a rather new subject in the museum industry, it has been widely used in rebranding and urbanising the traditional museum, in my research I consider it a flexible tool that complements one another. I chose an alter set of candlesticks in the China collection, and an alter set of five vessels stored in the ceramic collection (Figure 5). Both of these alter sets are coloured in blue and white and used to serve in Daoist temples in Beijing back to the Qing dynasty. I gathered the information on the V&A website and additional history background and puzzle the full life story together into this guide. The tone I used in this context is from a third-person view, I tried to avoid my personal feeling puzzle in, the text, but something was missing, I could not make clear what context could be related to who and why this could help with the decolonisation in the museum that I was focusing on, the guide was more like an unconscious practice that prepares the ground for what is to come.

For the second guide practice, I chose pomegranate-shaped vases of porcelain covered with glaze which have more common sense to the general Chinese public to compare with the altar set. I wanted the tone to be more lively since I chose three vases that were not currently on display on site, and I wanted to bring the audience closer to the object. I zoomed closer to the object to expose the detailed patterns, by pairing the background stories I hope this guide could help the reader have a better understanding of the object.

Practice Part II

I decided to go back to the starting point of my research, tracing back to my enthusiasm for visiting museums, especially going there alone and escaping from the cultural norms. The object itself is always neutral, but the emotional values, are a constant reminder of, a sense of belonging about who I am beyond my nationality but within the confines of my own unique experience, and the object becomes the shape of my self-consciousness. The constant reflecting process was a representation not only of love and appreciation but also of willingness to understand as a proof of self-existence. Using object biography in my reflection practice helps me realise this pair of candlesticks is fully inspired by imported goods and the imagination of the Baroque style. The ‘Orientalism’ (Thomas, 2024) and ‘Western-style’ (Smith, 2014) seem to co-response to each other in the V&A and deliver the full image of art history more than any words in the textbook.

With my feelings engraved by all kinds of experiences, I decided to use graphics to visualise the record of my inner thoughts and imagine how the objects and bodies could meet and interact outside the museum. By using graphic design to create a subjective guide that concentrates on an alter set pair of traditional but exotic candlesticks from my perspective. This guide emotionally resonant the cultural influence of the 'East' and 'West' on me. To share my experience with other visitors, these guides would “live” and be found in the guide area at the entrance of the museum or on the bookshelf in the gift shop, and visitors could find it available once they enter the door, or after visiting and finding souvenirs in the store.

I divided the guide into seven themes, each of which includes a kind of fantasy and understanding of these candlesticks. The title ‘Zoom in & Zoom Out’ applies to the metaphor of using the camera, when the lens has been pulling too close to the object, it is easy to lose focus and trapped in the details. Zooming out of the image, helps me to remind the reason why this object looks exotic but familiar at the same time. It reminds me of the baroque pattern that I have seen in museums, the sound waves that when I blow out the candle, the balustrades stairs I walk by in a hotel, the dinnerware that I use every day, the furniture that my parents bought, and my cabinet at home which was decorated with my souvenirs from travel.