2021: "THE SILENT MAZE" - conceptual exhibition

2021: "The Silent Maze" - conceptual exhibition

Genre: University work

Subject: Capstone Studio 1

Date of execution: October - December, 2021

The works presented in this project are parts of the pre-graduating course of Design Studies program, RMIT University. This course is in collaboration with the Museum of HCMC (Bảo tàng Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh), with the task is to bring innovation and enhancement to existing values of HCMC & the Museum.

Expected deliverables are: a prototype design (any format the students desire) of a conceptual event where general audience can engage and acquire some values of the city & museum; an event-scape introducing the event; a process book of how and why the prototype is designed; an overall visual diary throughout the course to show the large process of ideation. All projects and prototypes made by the students were exhibited in the Museum of HCMC when the course finished.

The Silent Maze prototype

My project: The Silent Maze

"The Silent Maze" is a project revolves around post-COVID period of HCMC and how people experience their daily surroundings. I got the idea of this project by an idle thought of how silent the streets were during social isolation phase. "Where has all the energy gone?", the streets that were once crowded now turn all silent. HCMC never sleeps with its hectic traffic and people going out about their days. Have the pandemic just erased that energy, or is it hidden somewhere else that needs to be looked out?

Following that, I explored and researched deeper in the subjects: human, sound, silence, streets and houses. The sounds that are usually loud and out-standing to hear now have left the streets. Therefore, we must stay be quiet and listen harder to the silent sounds: the said energy now has gone inside the houses. Homes, families. Sounds of traffic turn into sounds of cooking, family gathering, people talking and laughing and fighting because now they have to stuck with each other all days all weeks. Interesting discoveries that could never be heard if you stand on a street in normal days, because they were hidden beneath the noisiness of this city. Interesting discoveries that now can be heard from a silent street during COVID times.

The design prototype I chose to illustrate and bring this concept to life is a 3D animation of my own exhibition: a silent HCMC. To re-create the scenery of empty streets during pandemic days, I built in 3D space miniature houses and streets to represent a small HCMC, with activities designated for the audience to explore and acquire their own values out of them. Conceptually, on the outside are 3D houses modeled from real images of all kinds of house around the districts in HCMC. Inside the houses are attached with small-volume audio recordings of indoor family sounds for people to explore them from the outside. Along the wall is polaroid boards where people can share their personal stay-at-home moments together. All these designated activities are to encouraging the audience to appreciate the silent energy of each individual inside our families during COVID times, to help each other get through months of hardship and to heal a painful city that has lost a lot after that phase. It is always the silence that speaks volume.

The Silent Maze exhibition conceptual video

The Silent Maze event-scape

Process book cover

Detailed process book with curated layout using Adobe InDesign can be visited here.

3D elements

Technical aspect, this project is an opportunity to showcase my 3D modeling ability. The conceptual exhibition is built and animated in Blender; with graphics elements (PBR materials, images, characters) all made by the author. The final video is edited in Adobe After Effects.