Qingming:

A Sculpture of Resilience


Qingming is an online space in memory of COVID-19 victims in China. It takes visitors to the Hongshan Auditorium in Wuhan, the place where the controversial “Two Sessions” of Hubei were held in January 2020. Visitors can leave their names here to join the counter-clockwise walk and commemorate the lost life. Each visitor leaves a walking path of their own, and these trajectories collectively form an online monument.

This monument will permanently stand in front of Wuhan Hongshan Auditorium on major map websites.

Visit the Website ︎︎︎

 

TEAM
Huiyi Chen
Rui An
Jiabao Li
Sheng Wang
ROLE
Website Design
Motion Design 
Frontend Development
TIME
2020.3- 2020.4




Background

QINGMING


April 4, 2020 is the Qingming Festival. Qingming, also known as Tomb-sweeping Day, is a day to mourn and commemorate ancestors and the lost loved ones in East Asian countries. But this year, due to pandmic measurements, people are unable to visit graves or perform any memorial service.

By April 4, at least 3335 people in China had died from Covid-19. As the outbreak in China gradually got under control, voice questioning Wuhan officials’ actions in early days of the outbreak also got silenced.  

The goal of the project was to create a digital space not only as an alternative way to mourn the lost lives, but to remember and reflect on the systematic problems exposed during the crisis.  

This website was launched at Qingming 2020, with 2093 people people participating on that day. In a time and place where protesting on street is impossible, curating the public online-walking experience is our attemp to voice resistance.





Design Process

3D Enviroment 


We asked ourselves, If we were to have a physical walk/protest, where would it be? Wuhan Hongshan Auditorium immediately came to mind.


Smile because it happened
︎︎︎ What is Hongshan Auditorium
Decemebr 26, 2019, Discovery of unknow pneumonia was first reported to Wuhan Heatlh Ministry by a local doctor. From Jan. 6 to Jan. 17, a critical period of containing the virus, Wuhan and Hubei Province held “two sessions” at Hongshan Auditorium; No new case was reported during this period. Jan 20, The officials anounced “human to human” transimisson and started to take measurements for the outbreak -- which later became a pandemic.

What were the health officials doing during Jan. 6 and Jan. 17? Did Wuhan government try to curb the alarm for holding “two sessions”? These are questions many people have in mind, but cannot ask publicly in China.

Bringing visitors to this special site will allow them to understand the unspoken questions this project tried to ask. 


We then started to sketch out the 3D environment according to Baidu map:




create models
Create models


place models on the map and build the scene in three.js
Align models with the street map and build the scene in three.js. 
I used fog, lighting, and grey color palette to reflect the sorrow and 
solem of Qingming.