Yuchen Xie

The Garden’s Eyes centres on the culturally renowned and time-honoured gardens of Suzhou, Jiangnan, which many visitors to China want to understand more deeply. My aim, in this creative research project, was to enable this through an informed symbolic visual guidance system. The system is the result of exploring the cultural significance and pattern and motif symbolism of the leak windows of Song (960-1279), Yuan (1279-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasty gardens. It is also the outcome of exploring how 2D communication systems, the garden map traditionally given visitors, could be designed differently so as to give visitors a feel of the gardens and their key features. The outcome of this exploration is a 3D visual guidance system, an artwork, that is both material and symbolic, and reminiscent of China’s cultural heritage.