VCA DESIGN & PRODUCTION
GRADUATE SHOWCASE
GRADUATE SHOWCASE
Clone Forest — 3D animation, 3D printing, zine publication, 2025
Clone Forest is a speculative design project centered on the idea of “copying,” imagining how life on Earth might be restored after ecological collapse. The work is influenced by post-apocalyptic aesthetics, Soviet Brutalist architecture, and Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, especially its reflections on the survival and reconstruction of civilization. In this narrative, human “life information” is embedded into mechanical hybrid seeds, which are manufactured in underground laboratories and launched to the devastated surface—echoing the abandoned industrial structures and launch-tower imagery that appear throughout The Three-Body Problem.
These seeds are printed, released, and able to copy and spread themselves, gradually regenerating barren land. Visually, the project draws inspiration from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, cave-like geological structures, and industrial cooling towers, merging “industrial ruins + new ecological growth” into a contrasting future aesthetic.
The project combines digital and physical practices: 3D-modeled seed structures, a zine with a custom 3D-printed cover, and hand-painted physical prototypes using electroplating and layered spray finishes. By merging mechanical parts with botanical forms, Clone Forest asks whether life could continue through technology, replication, and mutation when natural systems fail.
For my practice, this project is significant because it connects narrative, material experimentation, and speculative ecology. The animation, printed publication, and physical objects form one integrated system, extending a Three-Body-like question: in the ruins of the world, can copying become a method of survival and rebirth?
Voice recording: Kieran Boland
Tutor guidance: Willow Berzin, Kieran Boland
Clone forest, 2025
Each piece approximately 249.7 mm × 177.5 mm.
3D-printed models: PLA filament, electroplating, spray-painted surface finishes, and UV-curable resin.
Clone forest,2025
Approximately 148 × 210 mm (A5 size).
Zine cover: 3D-printed models with using PLA filament with electroplating and spray-painted finishes, combined with DC board, artificial greenery, LED lights and hand-cut PVC sheets.
Clone forest,2025
Binding & Materials: Inner pages — European cotton accordion fold
Cover — Silver cardstock
Overall binding — Z-fold structure
I am from Shunde, China. Now I am working across speculative design, 3D visualization. My practice explores how technology, reproduction, and ecology shape future forms of life, often imagining worlds where nature and machinery coexist, collapse, or regenerate together. I am particularly interested in themes of copying, mutation, and artificial ecosystems, where design becomes a tool to question how life might continue beyond environmental ruin.
My recent projects combine 3D modelling, animation, and physical fabrication, including 3D-printed objects, hand-built structures, and zine publications. Influenced by post-apocalyptic aesthetics, Soviet Brutalist architecture, and sci-fi literature such as The Three-Body Problem, I construct visual narratives that stretch between fiction and reality.