My future aspiration is clear: to continue my studies at the postgraduate level, likely focusing on design, while deliberately blending in the technical and conceptual skills I have developed during my sound art degree. This decision did not emerge in isolation. It has been profoundly shaped by the structure of my BA course, the experimental environments it exposed me to, and the critical feedback from peers who constantly pushed me to question what art can do.
Over the past three years, I have moved from contemporary visual art and product design into the unfamiliar territory of sound art. That transition was intentionally uncomfortable—and that discomfort became my best teacher. Courses introducing Pure Data (a programming environment for sound installation) taught me to think algorithmically. Learning Ableton, multichannel sound, and the technical nuances of recording microphones gave me a new vocabulary. But more importantly, these skills reshaped how I understand design: not as static form, but as dynamic, sensory experience.
My peers were instrumental here. Collaborating with dancers, for instance, forced me to treat sound as something physical—something that could be seen through movement and felt through vibration. One early project, where I connected thread to a speaker so that tempo vibrated through the thread, was directly inspired by watching a peer work with haptic feedback. That piece, created for the hard-of-hearing community, taught me that design is most powerful when it serves accessibility. My peers’ willingness to experiment across disciplines made me realise that my own future must remain cross-disciplinary.
Work experience, though still emerging, has also shaped me. Brief placements and freelance projects in Beijing and Hong Kong showed me that the creative industry in mainland China and Hong Kong values designers who can move between sound, visual, and interactive media. This has directly influenced my aspiration: after postgraduate study, I intend to work in a media or design company based in mainland China or Hong Kong—perhaps in experiential design, interactive installation, or user experience that incorporates sound. Companies such as Moment Factory (if expanding to Asia), XGG (Xinyuan Global Group), Tencent’s creative media labs, or Hong Kong-based studios like Dimension Plus or Kaiju Studio come to mind. But more than specific names, I seek a space where my hybrid background—sound, textiles, 3D, drawing, and now coding—is seen not as scattered, but as strategic. My aspiration is to become a designer who does not specialise narrowly, but who specialises in integration. The course taught me that possibility. Now I intend to pursue it.