RESEARCH-BASED DESIGN

2022-ongoing

How ‘search affect learners’ motivation in RtD(research through design)?

︎research process

I contextualized the browsing experience of RtD learners to figure out how they get lost in “search.”

2022

Redefine kinships, before we talk about sex

︎research process

Dear family, a card game  facilitating an open communication space for Taiwanese queer teens. In the research, I digged into the relation between coming-out and kinship in Taiwan.

WORKSHOP

2023

What’s Your Dream workshop series

︎What’s Your Dream: Drawing 2gether
︎What’s Your Dream: Posing 2gether

A series of workshops I taught at Pratt Institute, which designed for participants to explore their careers, life purposes, and selves through body movements, tangible objects, and drawing tools.

WRITING

2022-2023

Asterisk as a life form: timeline reconstruction in developing self-identity

︎kecha pucha video
︎read full writing

This project focuses on the formation of queerness within everyday movements, kinship (especially between my mother and me), and self-creation (zine-making as a sense of belonging). Using the asterisk as a metaphor for the liminality and multiplicities in personhood, I aim to propose an epistemological approach to a timeline that wanders between self, translation, and nation, that can not be “tamed” by the linear, canon history, which flattens and omits the complexity of lives.

WEAR* instruction zine

︎full zine

An instructional zine to promote the asterisk costume during the 2023 Pratt Show. Through this zine, I encourage the audience to wear the costume and immerse themselves in the show as an asterisk. By posing questions related to topics like gendered typeface, male-dominated design history, and emotional literacy, the audience can learn to perform the functions of an asterisk: indicating omissions, adding footnotes, and resistance.

ABOUT ME

Tzu Yun Wei (they/them) is a Brooklyn-based Taiwanese design researcher and cultural facilitator.

Growing up as a Taiwanese queer individual navigating the complexities of nationality, gender, sexuality, ethics, and identity from the margins. Tzu Yun draws inspiration from zine culture, nomadic concepts, and transnational queerness, which drive their creative endeavors; their works and research focus on empowering multi-layered subjectivity in individuals through dialogue-based workshops, events, and mixed media.

Their work has gained recognition through scholarships, collaborations, workshops, and lectures, including participating in the Processing Community Day Taiwan 2023, Other Island Book Fair, Pratt Institute, BEAMS, TAIPEI ART BOOK FAIR, and more.

They now work as a freelance design researcher and cultural facilitator; they’re also a member of SpOnAcT, a Taiwanese design collective.


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