i'm collecting a series of random objects

Specimen

What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another, fanciful Lolita - perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping, encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness - indeed, no life of her own.

Lolita, Nabokov


































feels like i'm slowly disappearing into silence and dust

sinking, heaving, fighting to preserve faith in self

because i can't vote, here's my 2 cents worth:

i want to be proud of my country. i don't want to feel embarrassed about our ministers getting so much money while the average person struggles with rising costs, and then gets chided for ingratitude and bad attitude, alongside the poor justification that without the govt., the country will turn corrupt. where is the integrity or transparency in that? i don't want to feel bad talking about the heavy censorship laws and political repression, or about how many young people (i was once like that!) are passive and apathetic, reduced or conditioned to a mindset that as long as they have a comfortable life, anything goes. most of all, it's irksome and frustrating when you feel increasingly alienated from your own country, when you become unquestioningly dependent on the govt., and when you have to face a bunch of coffee shop people who complain without end but do nothing about it when it really matters. we need an alternative voice that listens and speaks for the people. not a 'us' vs 'you' one-party state.

Fashion Design

I went to Antwerp yesterday for an interview, and gawd, it's undeniably true. I love fashion. Let me correct that, I love fashion design. It is inspiring, rejuvenating and all-encompassing. A friend of mine asked, do we still need another generic designer ie. one who follows fashion seasons and basically produces clothes. It's hard to answer because like everything else, routine is always the easy path to take. I think the question I need to ask is: do I want to make clothes or do I want to make something more - ?

For example, Exercices de Style does projects based mainly on the idea of (walking) cities. Garments that are interactive, tactile, and explore our urban lifestyles. It all makes sense because fashion represents not just a piece of cloth, but is part of history, society (representing social norms, ideals, functions). We don't realize this because the fashion system, in line with consumerism, has created a fast, superficial, and hyped up world that ignore the actuality, the materiality, the contextual elements of clothes.

I really want to start my own thing (if only I could graduate now!) Naive perhaps, but I miss the actual process of designing. I feel like I've lost that adventurous spirit in AMFI. Somewhere along the way, I got caught up in all that visual bullshit and forgot about how much I love designing and creating. Somewhere along the way, I also lost sight of all the things I learnt before AMFI and when I think about it now, I realize there is so so so much more that I can give.