Mordern Express report, 2014-02-20
Yesterday, “The Design Exhibition of ‘the Beans’ Group” was held in the exhibition hall on the ground floor of the School of Design of Jiangnan University (JU). Different from the common exhibitions for watching, this exhibition concerns the situation of the mentally handicapped, aiming to make the audience understand, focus on and improve the life situation of such groups, through the multi-sensory experience of seeing, listening and touching.
Life for “the Beans” is not easy.
The mentally handicapped are characterized by simple-mindedness, adherence and happiness, so they are usually called “the Beans”. It is said that before this exhibition, the school’s teachers and students had visited many rehabilitation hospitals in Wuxi, and within seven months, they have got a clearing understanding of the situation of the mentally handicapped by the means of experiencing the life of the handicapped.
Yesterday afternoon, the journalist of Modern Express came to the exhibition hall of the School of Design. In the “documentary” area, the simple and honest expressions and gestures of “the Beans” in the pictures looked very lovely. However, several pictures about “the Beans” bending down to pick up things and doing handicrafts, made people understand their hard life. Besides, some pots in this area looked the same as the common ones at first glance, but if you examine them carefully, you will find a number labeled on each pot. What is the reason for that? Liu Zhenliang, a junior majoring in industrial design, said that every pot is given a number for fear that these pots may be mixed up due to their unfavorable memory.
On one side of the hall, many hand-paintings hanging on the wall looked simple but vivid, next to which we may find a lot of wind-bells. They were all made by “the Beans”. Niu Wenyuan, a junior majoring in environmental art design told the journalist “we just give them a theme and all the works were designed and made on their own; Their works showed that they have done a good job in spite of their different way of thinking”.
They are quick workers.
In the exhibition, we can also find many toothpaste shells made by “the Beans”, which is their routine job for a living. Their task is to put the lid on the shell and make the bottom of the shell a round shape. Zhang Chen, the organizer of this exhibition said “they just need 2.8seconds to complete one.” Out of interest, the journalist made a try only to find that it took her 6 seconds to finish one”.
Teachers and students of JU
They are very kind and simple
Niu Wenyuan said that “through the contact with them, I find they are very kind, simple and friendly, and every time I visit them, they would run towards me to say ‘hello’, give me a hug or kiss my hand. It seems to me that they are not retarded but lack of some practical experience and they can do a good job with our guidance”.
In addition, in the eyes of JU’s teachers and students, “the Beans” have special art talents.
In one painting drew by one “Bean”, we just spot only some circles and spots which actually mean the transportation vehicle. Liu Zhenliang said that “some paintings are very abstract and full of sense of art. Sometime it is difficult for us to understand their ideas, however, I think, some of them are likely to become great artists with proper guidance”.
Zhang Li said “if we only look at a single painting, we may feel it is really simple, but if we put all paintings together at an exhibition like this one, we will have special feelings for them. Through this exhibition, we aim to change people’s stereotypes for them. In fact, we shouldn’t regard them as the poor persons. On the contrary, we hope more and more people could inspire their potentials and make a difference for them”.
