Yu Zhang

Yu Zhang, was born and raised in Shanghai. She studied Printing Graphic Art in Shanghai. In 2011, she went to Oregon and received a BS in Product Design in University of Oregon. To know more about design, she moved to New York to study Design and Technology in Parsons. Yu is passionate about making meaningful design based on visual and feeling.

 

Presence

The design criticizes technology’s disruption of the present moment when people have a sense of self and are truly together.

Henry David Thoreau wrote about “Three Chairs” in his house, one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. This piece reimagines Thoreau’s chairs for the digital age.

My goal is to raise awareness of how our obsession with digital devices is impoverishing our lives. Instead of constantly consulting their smartphones, people might actually look up and be able to connect with experience and others, rather than isolating on the superficial exchanges provided by social media.