I Felt It Too (Elsa’s Comfort)

This work was inspired not by design theory but by the exaggerated weapons of anime and film—symbols of survival and defiance. Like Django’s coffin hiding a Gatling gun, its grotesque form conceals raw force. I grew up in Northeast China, a region once proud, now in decline, often misread and stereotyped. Later, moving to London, I felt these contradictions shift from being Northeastern to being Chinese in a global context. Violence is no longer a tool I can use, yet its spirit lingers, reshaped through design. This piece is not simply clothing or sculpture; it exists between weapon and armor. Its weight, mechanical form, and hidden functions—protection, storage, expansion—speak both of utility and identity. It is less an object than a stance: a declaration of difference, a survival tool in an age of shrinking spaces. For me, it is a way to channel contradictions, resist erasure, and transform struggle into form.