You're not alone 你并不孤单

In every century there is a wave of elderly people who contribute to and are ignored by the times. The older generation also represents the old traditional culture. We may seem to live in a land, but they live in the old times. We do not share the same society as they do and the only way to do that is to let them play and do things with us.
 Since 2014, I have been to villages of ethnic minorities in Yunnan and Guizhou. In Zhoucheng City in Yunnan, craftsmen forewent the natural dye isatis root and opted for chemical dyes amid the waves of economic growth, and the traditional dyeing craft was reduced to a mere marketing stunt. In Danzhai and Kaili in Guizhou, kids and young men no longer wear traditional customs of their ethnic minority; instead, only on festive occasions will they sport performance apparel for the tourists. The village bazaar was packed with fake ethnic minority costumes cranked out from machines. Had not I seen the ingenuity and grace of our ancestor’s costumes made by manual weaving and embroidery myself, I would not know how heart-breaking it is to see such anamorphic inheritance of our traditional cultural gems. Successors of the wisdom and creativity from our ancestors, we are also beneficiaries of the rich cultural legacy from the past. Thus, sustainable costumes of ethnic minorities have always been a focus of my design. In my project “You're not alone”, I creatively merged the patterns unique to ethnic minorities and employed such traditional crafts as batik, tie-dyeing, and katazome, to give new life to the traditional culture of ethnic minorities. The design is intended to provide the young generation a glimpse into the stories behind the fabric, strike a chord with them, and allow them to feel the substantial charm of traditional culture. What kind of future we have will be determined by our attitude towards the civilizations of the past, to a large extent. Chinese culture is profound and has a long history. What is certain is that we will also lose our future if our past is always eliminated.

在每个阶段都有一波老人，他们为时代做贡献又被时代忽略。老一辈也代表了古老的传统文化。我们没有和生活在旧时代的他们分享同一个社会，唯一的办法是让他们和我们一起玩，一起做事。 研究生期间，我多次往返少数民族地区，在云南周城，快速的经济发展迫使人们放弃板蓝根的天然染色工艺，取而代之的是化学染色，古法染色在这已经成为营销的噱头；在贵州丹寨、凯里，小孩、年轻男子不再穿着民族服饰，大多数人只有在节日的时候会穿上趋于表演性的盛装，以供旅游人士的观赏。在集市上，充斥着大量机器织绣的伪民族服饰，若不是我亲眼所见祖先精湛染织绣技艺的服饰，很难想象到这些变味了的传承意味着多么惨痛的损失。 我们生活在充满先人智慧与创造力的世界上，这些文化积淀使我们受益匪浅，基于这些理解，可持续服饰设计一直是我的课题，项目《你并不孤单》中，将传统图案加以创新，使用蜡染、扎染等工艺，通过共鸣设计，让人们感受传统文化的魅力。技艺反映中华传统文化中的造物思想，蕴含先人的远见与慈悲。 我们有怎样的未来，在很大程度上决定于我们对待过往文明的态度。中华文化，源远流长，博大精深，永垂不朽。如果我们的过去总被连根拔掉，那么我们也会丢掉未来。