What a hectic start! Normal simple things in a university lab become an awkward fit when a rudimentary textile studio needs to be placed in a small garage. I have done a weird set of tasks so far: choosing a room (ended up not doing it indoors because of ventilation problems), planning for the surface, assembling a laser cutter (and used the cheap safety goggles without knowing that it’s not working and hurt my eyes unintentionally)… but it’s also a learning process that otherwise I would not have asked for. Female researchers are found to be making significantly fewer publications during the quarantine. Trying to do the best of balancing other commitments, my superficial experience here is only a glimpse of how home working environments are the water and air to work and research right now.
Remote work feels detaching from others, but I am also learning to make the most out of it. Reading the paper from my mentor who introduced the idea of Generative Justice is so intriguing, while I often take social justice issues too seriously and recent events are giving me a hard time to sleep. As a result, I’d expect myself to learn more about validating my emotions and actively seeking change, and not forget the place where I am starting with. Culture and technology, Computing, Art, Mathematics… These fields seem so isolated as defined and yet they are so interconnected with and shaping each other, just as the work that the lab I’m grateful to be part of has been doing. I’m gaining the perspective of how to put the puzzles together and imagine a different system under the ideas drawn from the indigenous roots. I’m also constantly re-examining myself of why I love research and how it is different but not contradicting from other work that I engaged in such as activism – but I’ll leave that topic for another time.
Setting up is difficult, as we’re also finding a direction and planning out what the research experience with this fellowship would be like for me, but I’d remember the moment that things got stuck and frantically searching all over the web for possible solutions (and ended up finding none), as well as getting more creative and flexible with the given situation that we’re in. It would most possibly happen again very soon, but I’m glad that these necessary steps would certainly be less and less intimidating, and what kept me going is the research spirit with the faith that I am able to get things done. It applies to many other things, doesn’t it?