Part 1
Object Chosen: Juicy Couture Perfume
The Juicy Couture perfume was a popular fragrance from the 2000s. While it is still sold today, its popularity was at its peak in the 2000s. It was the only perfume I wanted to wear during that time, but I couldn’t. During my middle school years, my family was not doing well financially and could not afford the luxury of buying things that were not deemed as necessary for our survival when they had to deal with rent, insurance, food, and other bills fresh from moving to America. Even as a kid, I was not blind to their struggles. However, it did not stop me from fantasizing about the perfume in hopes that I will be able to wear it some day. I remember seeing the picture of the perfume in magazines and being able to smell it on the scented paper. I was always fascinated by the design of the bottle. It screamed luxury, femininity, and it became a part of my American girl dream. It seems silly to equate a perfume bottle to the American dream, but I was a middle school immigrant girl who just wanted to fit in with her peers. Over time, I was finally able to get my hands on this perfume bottle. When I sprayed it for the first time as a late teenager, the memory of me as a middle schooler sniffing the scented magazine page came back to me as a flashback. I appreciated the smell for the first few days of owning it, but it quickly become just like any other object, and I lost my fascination with it. I still used it regularly, and although I don’t wear the perfume anymore, whenever I smell it, I am brought back to the days of late high school/early college, and it made me realize the new memories I created with it after yearning after it for so long. It also made me realize that using objects as metaphors makes us realize that the object itself is not enough, it is about attaining the meaning behind the metaphor in the first place. Being older now, I think I feel more connected to my peers, but I think the “American Dream” is different for everyone, and even though I do feel grateful to be in this country, there is a lot that I learned and experienced while growing up that made me realize that maybe I don’t want the “classic” American Dream anymore. It’s funny how life works, because sometimes you end up getting what you want and you realize it’s not how you imagined it to be.
Object Chosen: Glasses
Glasses have long been used as a symbol of unattractiveness and nerdiness. Anyone can see it clearly when watching movies and TV shows where the “nerdy” main character is shown with glasses. In fact, the glasses are such a huge part of their character that in some movies, when a female character gets a “makeover” by another character, the female character is usually forced to take off her glasses as part of the process to appear more attractive. My vision started becoming blurry when I was in 3rd grade. I chose to wear purple oval glasses that I really liked, but as I kept watching these types of movies and shows, I became more aware about attractiveness. Wearing those glasses became something I dreaded because they started to make me feel self conscious. Eventually, I stopped wearing them almost completely, except for when I was sitting too far from the white board. I would also get new glasses every couple of years as I grew older, but I still did not like how I looked with them on, so I would still rarely wear them. Finally, I got the opportunity to start wearing contacts. It was one of the happiest days of my life, because I could finally see clearly without being self conscious of how I looked. However, by that time I had already started forming new insecurities. It’s yet another example of wanting something and then realizing it did not change your life as drastically as you thought it would. Additionally, getting contacts did not make me feel more attractive and I started to think of them less and less, as if they were invisible, almost taking advantage of the fact that I now have them and not being as grateful for them. Eventually, as I grew older, people started accepting glasses more and they became less of a symbol of unattractiveness in the media. I started to gain interest in glasses again. I wore them as a way to reclaim them, so now I wear both contacts and glasses, simply because my preference changes sometimes, but not from how attractive either of them make me feel. I wear either of them for my preference and my comfort now.
Object Chosen: Book – The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
My best friend ended up recommending “The Midnight Library” to me when I was going through a rough time. I was venting to her about the different decisions I have had to make and how I was unsure if these were the right decisions. After her recommendation, I read the synopsis. I found out it was about a woman going through a hard time and not realizing her worth, but she ends up having the opportunity to enter a magical library that allowed her to see how her life would have turned out if she had made different decisions. I ended up reading the book within a few days. It was truly the type of book that I was unable to put down. I read for hours at a time without a break. It had felt so long since I was able to get lost in a book like this. I had been a huge reader ever since I was able to read but temporarily lost the interest during high school. After high school, I regained the interest but also lost the time to read regularly. While reading this book, however, I was able to have the time and the interest to finish reading it quickly. After finishing this book, I learned the lesson of appreciating my life for the way it is and knowing that I am on the right path no matter what decision I make, because ultimately it is about not having regrets and accepting that you have an internal knowledge that knows what is best for you. I think this book has a timeless lesson in it that can apply to anyone in any time period. It also reminded me that we all have an impact on everyone’s lives. Our actions are like a domino effect. No matter how small you think they are, they matter.
Object Chosen: College Graduation Dress
This is the dress that I wore during my college graduation. I chose this object because this dress holds so many important memories and meaning. The main reason that my parents moved themselves and my sister and I to America was for us to receive education here. I started my American education in first grade, and the ultimate goals of my parents were for my sister and I to finish our college degrees in America. My older sister already finished her Bachelor’s and her Master’s education, so she started that dream for them. It is up to me to finish that dream. I am halfway done with my part of accomplishing the dream with this dress. On my college graduation day, I wore this dress and it became a symbol of my parents’ dream. I think it is an interesting object to choose because styles always change over the years. For example, each decade of the 1900s had its own specific style attached to it. I believe this dress style will become quintessential of the 2020s when future generations look back at this time capsule. It has also been a long-standing tradition that people choose nice clothes that they feel confident in for celebrating their accomplishments, so that is a timeless part of being human, especially a girl.
Object Chosen: 2 Polaroids
I decided to add polaroids to my time capsule as well. I specifically chose these 2 pictures of me and my friend’s cat and me and my friends. I really like these 2 photos because I think they really help show the nature of being human, and especially being a girl. It shows the relationship humans have with each other and with animals. I remember going to a museum and seeing artifacts from older time periods and I was amazed that humans have always loved having an animal companion. Although I do not have a pet of my own, I have spent a lot of time with my best friend’s cat, Zola. She is a very sweet and friendly cat and has bonded with me for the past few years that I have known her. She was my first real interaction with a pet. The other polaroid of my friends and I is from my friend’s birthday picnic from June 2022. It’s our tradition to have a picnic every summer and this picture means a lot to me because I don’t have that many photos of my friends, because we never take photos that often. I think that even though polaroids were more popular before we had smartphones, it shows that we still want tangible photos, rather than just digital photos. It shows that we still have an attachment to physical photos.
Object Chosen: Rare Beauty Lip Oil
The final object I chose is the Rare Beauty lip oil in the shade serenity. Rare Beauty is a makeup brand that become popular a couple years ago. It recently released this lip oil which was considered innovative because it is a lip oil that leaves a stain when it dries. I chose this object because this whole brand is about teaching people who wear makeup that makeup should be used to emphasize your beauty instead of seeing it as a way to cover up your insecurities. They have a lot of different shades with really inspiring names, such as happy, honor, blessed, support, encourage, grateful, etc. While I was growing up, I was taught by the media that makeup should be used to cover up insecurities, but because of this brand, I started to see makeup in a different light. It makes me wonder how people’s relationship with makeup will change in a century.
Story Portrayal: A Cosmic Connection
For my story portrayal, I decided to design a CD that I titled “A Cosmic Connection.” I think time capsules are a way of bringing humans together because we try to find similarities of their personality/interests from different time periods to our interests during our current time period. In this design, I included all of my objects and some other digital scraps for decoration. For the “track list,” I was thinking of naming each song by relating it to the objects. This is the track list that I came up with:
1. Scent of Nostalgia (Perfume)
2. New Perspective (Glasses)
3. Life Goes On (The Midnight Library book)
4. American Dream (Graduation dress)
5. Flashback (Polaroids)
6. One of a Kind (Rare Beauty lip oil)
Part 2:
Final Time Capsule Design
Sketches:
For my sketches, I had 3 different ideas for how I should create the time capsule: the moon, a CD, or a giftbox. I wanted to create the moon because in the movie, “Dear John,” there is a couple dealing with long distance and the man tells the woman: “we are always looking at the same moon” to comfort her. I thought that was a really beautiful quote and a great perspective to make people feel less alone while dealing with long distance and I think it also applies well to the concept of a time capsule, because even the people who would be opening this time capsule in 125 years would be looking at the same moon that I did, which shows that human connection cannot be erased. The moon is also a symbol of feminine energy which I believe is the essence of my project because most of my chosen objects have a feminine theme to them (perfume, girl friends, dress, makeup). My second idea was to create a large CD to further continue my story design in part 1 of this project. My theme was going to be that people write about the meanings/symbolism behind my chosen objects, such as the themes of beauty, growing up, consciousness, different perspective and that music brings people together, so it would bring people together even if they were 125 years apart. However, I realized the CD would have been too bulky and not the right design for me. My last idea was to create a giftbox with 6 compartments inside. This idea was formed from the quote: “The current moment is a gift, that is why it is called the present.” I thought that was a really beautiful quote to once again symbolize human connection because the time is relative and in 125 years, when this time capsule would have been opened, it would be in that generation’s “present” moment.
Chosen Design: The Moon
After choosing the moon as my design, I decided to make a small paper prototype of my vision. I used poster paper because I wanted that paper to be thick enough to bend but still hold shape. I drew craters with pencil. This is a very rough prototype, but it helped me envision how I wanted my final prototype to look.
The Process
I bought this moon shelf 2 years ago to decorate my room. However, I never got around to using it. When I rediscovered that I had this, it inspired me to create my final time capsule design. I thought it could be used as the perfect framework for my capsule.
I cut, corrugated, and glued cardboard on the framework. I corrugated when I wanted more flexibility. I ended up using hot glue for this part and it was an efficient process. I was struggling with the flaps of the top part of the capsule because I originally wanted to create a proper cardboard lid but I could not figure out how to do it in a way that did not make it flimsy, so I ended up making these flaps that correspond to all 3 shelf spaces inside.
My next task was to find pictures of the moon’s surface, print it out, cut it up, and tape it all over the cardboard. I ended up using duct tape and scotch tape for this process, because the hot glue would have been too messy. I ended up taping it on the entire outside portion of the capsule.
For the inside flaps of the time capsule, I decided to tape black construction paper to it. In the center flap, I added a printed photo of a butterfly, which is supposed to be a reference for “The Butterfly Effect,” which is the phenomenon that even the smallest action can cause monumental changes in the bigger picture. It is often used when talking about time travel. A time capsule is a type of time travel. I also thought it was a beautiful metaphor for one of the objects in my time capsule, which is the book, “The Midnight Library,” which teaches the lesson that even the smallest actions have a huge impact on other people’s lives. The butterfly is also a symbol of change and transformation which is an important result of growing up. With the butterfly, I used folded up black construction paper to create an accordion effect which I used to make a pop-up effect, which is something we have been speaking about in class. Overall, I believe my final time capsule design suits my chosen objects very well.
Part 3:
For my story presentation, I wanted to display my perspective on how people will react to unearthing this time capsule in 125 years. I chose a comic style because I believe it displays the story format appropriately. I created the story of a little girl finding the time capsule while playing in a play ground. She shows it to her mom and her mom shows it to the museum to keep it in tact. While it is being displayed in the museum, a teenage girl comes up to the mom and daughter to tell them how the women in her family used to wear that perfume. I wanted this comic story-telling narrative to show how these items all relate to femininity and girlhood. I wanted whoever identifies as a girl/woman to be able to relate to this in some way. It shows the passage of time, feminine energy, and growing up.