Q. Hello, please introduce yourselves.
A. Hi, we are Kim Yoon-hee, Park Jung-in, Yang Se-rin, and Lim Hyun. We are currently sophomores majoring in Art Education at Hanyang University (HYU). This semester, we held a collaboration project with the Seongdong Mental Health Welfare Center and came up with the “An Umbrella Project.”
Q. What made you first come up with this project?
A. We all took Professor Oh Hyung-kyun’s “Visual Design” course this semester. As an assignment, we were told to devise “a design that can change the world.” Keeping this in mind, we began brainstorming on what kind of audience we wanted to reach and then decided to focus on ourselves: university students. We wanted to address depression: an emotion that many university students easily feel but sadly often neglect. Through interviewing experts in the field and thoroughly researching adolescent depression, we were able to understand that depression can be most effectively solved not through external factors but through carefully looking into oneself.
With this insight, we proceeded to work on visualizing the solution. The idea of using an umbrella in the project came up as we tried to compare the inside of an umbrella to the inner world of a person. When we use an umbrella, we naturally get to see the inside of it. We wanted students to do the same: to look inside themselves. We wanted students to borrow the project’s umbrellas and look into the inner part of them. Hence, we named the umbrellas “An,” which means both “the inside part of an object” and “not doing something” in Korean.
Q. The umbrellas that were placed in front of the HYU subway station received positive feedback from many HYU students and from the school community as well. How did you feel when you saw these reactions?
A. We spent a lot of time near the subway station as we installed the umbrellas and filmed the promotion video for the project. During that time, we were able to interview many HYU students and listen to their opinions towards the project. We were thrilled to see that many students recognized our efforts and intentions in designing the umbrellas. We were very thankful and felt proud that our hard work was acknowledged. It was a valuable experience to be able to communicate and reach out to fellow students through our project.
Q. Is there any particular message that you would like to send out through this project?
A. We want more students to understand that lifting the burden off one’s shoulders does not require a big step, just like how we lightheartedly approached adolescent depression through this project. It starts from taking small steps such as taking care of oneself. This project is only the beginning of our journey. We plan to continue creating designs that bring about positive change in people. Thank you.