Casey Jiang✳Personal Website
01 Chapter 01 — where culture hides in details

Field &
Cultural Memory

Culture often reveals itself through small details: a word, a garment, a family story, or a gesture repeated across generations. This Field & Cultural Memory section gathers the observations, encounters, and archival traces through which I explore how people remember where they come from.

Project 1

Liangshan Yi Culture & Sustainable Tourism

Published in Curieux Journal in 2024

Awarded for Most Creative Action Plan Award

During my fieldwork in Liangshan, I explored how tourism can create new opportunities for cultural visibility while also simplifying the traditions it seeks to celebrate. Through interviews, site visits, and cultural documentation, I examined Yi embroidery, Bimo traditions, language, education, and local tourism.

The experience changed how I understood preservation: not as keeping culture unchanged, but as ensuring that communities retain the agency to interpret, adapt, and represent their own heritage.

Field research meeting during the Liangshan cultural tourism study
9Months of research
10Days of fieldwork in Liangshan
25Interviews with residents, artisans & educators
6 yrsOf data analyzed for an 11-page research paper

Field Documentation — Through My Lens

← drag the photos →

Community visit during fieldwork
Field research documentation
Field photograph from Liangshan
Liangshan Yi cultural fieldwork
Yi cultural tradition in Liangshan
Landscape documented during Liangshan fieldwork
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Project 2

History Worn: The Investigation

What can a school uniform reveal beyond its color and cut? History Worn began with this question.

Drawing from archives, historical photographs, oral accounts, and visual analysis, I traced 110 years of uniforms at my school. Each design reflected more than changing styles: it carried ideas about discipline, belonging, educational values, and student identity.

By examining an object worn every day, I discovered that cultural memory can be found not only in distant traditions, but also in the ordinary materials closest to us.

110Years of uniform history traced
4Research methods — archives, oral accounts, photography & visual analysis
5,000+Views on the published WeChat feature
1Exhibition developed for a school community of 5,000+

Oral History — Uniforms Remembered

Interview for History Worn research
Visiting Former Uniform Designer
History Worn research material
Interviews on Uniforms History
Archival research for History Worn
Discussing and Curating Exhibition with my Teammates
Explore the Exhibition