Celebration of Year 12 Major Works 2020

Welcome to this wonderful collection of Major Works created by Year 12 2020. The range of subjects across design, technology, music, visual arts, English and drama demonstrate the diversity of strengths and passions seen in our AISHK graduating students. These works represent the culmination of planning, experimentation, practice and polishing leading to a final body of work worthy of an audience’s appreciation and the awarding of outstanding grades. Enjoy and immerse yourself in this experience ‘par excellence’.

Howard West | Head of Secondary (2020)

Thank you to the following staff who supported the Year 12 Class of 2020:

Design & Technology

Christina Carini – Teacher
Danny Freer - Support

Julian Sabnani – Technical support

English

Jo Craig - Teacher
Janine Haymes - Drafting Support

Information Processes & Technology

Danny Freer



Performing Arts

Kiely Murphy - Teacher
Chris McCorkell - Teacher
Meg Rowe - Teacher (Year 11)

Paul Ng and Thomas Chiu - Technical Support
Daphne Tse - Admin Support

Visual Art

Andrew McLean – Teacher
Marc Allante – Teacher

Claire Lo – Technical support

And with special gratitude in remembrance of Amanda Sze, Visual Art teacher 2015-2019


HSC English Extension 2

Botfield, Ashley
McCauley, Emily

Botfield, Ashley

Four Walls is a highly engaging Performance Poem that explores the impact of place and culture on the formation of personal identity. Stemming from personal experience, the poem presents the perspective of Alice, a teenager and ‘third culture kid’ who moves from the Hills district in Sydney to the bustling city of Hong Kong; a place that just like Alice, is striving to shape its own identity. Alice’s plight is made all the more difficult by the Covid-19 pandemic and broader political unrest in Hong Kong. Ashley has taken an experimental approach to her composition and produced a performance that is original, insightful and emotionally stirring for the listener.

McCauley, Emily

Beams of Light is a nuanced Short Story that explores the tensions between the past and the present in the perception of self-actualisation. Inspired by the writing of Gail Jones, Tim Winton and Virginia Woolf, Emily takes a multi-perspective approach to challenge the Platonic ‘Myth of Aristophanes’. The plot centres on the character of Lucy; a 30-year-old-woman from a small town who finds herself apathetically discontent with her relationship and more broadly, her life. Beams of Light is notable for its restrained but lyrical prose and the purposeful use of light-based imagery that acts as an extended metaphor for the protagonist’s journey.


HSC Design & Technology

Botfield, Ashley
Chau, Justin
Marsh, Callum
McGrath, Connor
Ortis, Zachary
Steadson, Prudence
Tam, Sharman
Prosser, Chiara

Botfield, Ashley

Name of work: DiaMoods 

Medium: App Design / Systems Design 

Concept: Individuals with Type 1 Diabetes are twice as likely to develop either anxiety, depression, serious psychological distress or an eating disorder than people who don’t have the condition. As well as this, Type 1 Diabetics are faced with the challenge of extreme daily mood swings due to changing sugar levels that cause feelings including: anger, confusion, irritability, hyperactivity, nervousness, over excitement and fatigue. This specifically affects teenagers/ adolescents as they are already undergoing multiple physiological and psychological changes. 

Being motivated by my own challenges and personal experiences with Type 1 Diabetes, I set out to design a product/software that assists teenagers with Type 1 Diabetes that struggle with mood swings and ill mental health. The idea was to execute this through tracking mood swings and blood sugars levels and presenting the patient with the correlation between these factors. The aim of designing this app was to educate, prevent issues, provide advice, relieve worry and confusion based on mood swings and assist in gaining medical assistance regarding mental health through sharing abilities. It is my hope that this app will aid and guide adolescent individuals who struggle with both Type 1 Diabetes and mental health issues, enhancing the quality of their life overall.

Chau, Justin

Name of work: Animation Invasion & Clash of the Justiverse (aka COTJ)  

Medium: Cartoon and animation series (Animation Invasion), Card game (COTJ)  

Concept: A pair of works meant to show new ideas and entertain audiences of any type, using my cartoon-style art.  

Animation Invasion is a series of artworks which aim to experiment with my art: how they would adapt to different mediums such as crowding up in a large artwork and even adding my characters to real life photographs. Parts of the series include physical artworks, a large canvas, moving animations and photo-manipulation, all populated by dozens of cartoon characters and their interactions with their medium.  

Clash of the Justiverse is a physical card game with endearing art and a card design system based on feedback from pre-existing card games. It draws inspiration from many physical or virtual card games such as Yu-Gi-Oh, Plants vs. Zombies Heroes and Hearthstone. The objective is to summon units to defeat your opponent’s units and defeat the enemy hero first. In the design process, I brainstorm new ideas to create and evolve unique card designs, which are both innovative and easy to understand.

Marsh, Callum

Name of work: Modular Laptop Cooling Pad

Medium: 3D Modelling & Electronics

Concept: I wanted to make a more effective cooling pad for my laptop, as the current models on the market do not provide enough cooling power for my laptop. Due to this I decided to make the cooling pad modular and increase the cooling power by experimenting with Peltier devices.   

McGrath, Connor

Name of work: Walking stick production kit  

Medium: Product Design / Biomechanics, Anthropometrocs & Human-Centred Design  

Concept: I’ve  developed a moulding kit for developing communities that will teach individuals how to make or improve their existing walking sticks with materials they have access to. This is to provide underprivileged users with more support and comfort. It will also be freely distributed to communities in need.

Ortis, Zachary

Name of work: Eco Friendly Student Accommodation

Medium: Architecture & Biomimicry

Concept: With an increase in global temperatures caused by an overabundant use of energy and with an increase in price for student accommodation, I have come up with a solution that satisfies both the problems. A building that takes inspiration from the fennec fox through biomimicry by creating a building that has the same properties as the fox’s ability to cool down quickly, cutting out the need for excessive use of air-conditioning and cutting overall costs down while having enough room for students to live in for a low price.

Steadson, Prudence

Name of work: Pistachio Shell Bio Bowl (Biomaterials)  

Medium: Materials Science / Sustainable Design  

Concept: The earth is becoming more and more polluted with the waste of one use products. It’s frustrating to see something so convenient made from non biodegradable materials have such a large impact on our earth. These waste materials pollute waterways and endanger wildlife with its high carbon footprint. An alternative is needed. The intentions of my product were to design a one use product that was fundamentally created from the core of a completely biodegradable material. I decided it would be made from the waste of pistachio nut shells and a bioadhesive that best suited. I later discovered the bioadhesive that gave the best results was Agar Agar powder. Essentially this product is a combination of crushed pistachio shells, agar agar powder and a compression mould. All these factors together helped create my product. 

Tam, Sharman

Name of work: SEAMS of a New Era Charity Fashion Show  

Medium: Performance / Art Direction / Project Management / Media  

Concept: Due to the societal pressure placed on children in pursuing a career that is ‘lucrative’, such as medicine and engineering, there is a lack of focus in other subject areas such as the arts, which are commoly considered as less important in the hirearchy. Hong Kong is known for its high stress education system. A lot of students feel an extreme amount of pressure and found it difficult to release these negative emotions. The demand for a creative outlet for artistic and self expression is high as pupils often get stressed over academics. There is a strong need for young artists to collaborate with each other on the same platform as well as connect through their arts and design work. I intended to organize a AISHK annual charity fashion show SEAMS in order to provide Hong Kong students to pursue their interest in arts and design, as well as a method of relieving academic stress. SEAMS is an ongoing student-led initiative at AISHK (Australian International School Hong Kong). First started in 2007, the annual fashion show aims to raise money for a nominated charity and to enable those participating in the IB curriculum to complete hours of service. The money raised next year will be donated towards a school project of building a kindergarten in Vietnam with the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation, an organisation that AISHK has a long and fruitful relationship with. Some of the SEAMS shows from previous years result in a loss in profit, hence SEAMS 2020 placed a strong focus on the charity aspect. The event provided a safe space for high school students to escape from their daily commitments for artistry expression that they find it difficult to apply to their academics otherwise. There is also a strong demonstration of inclusivity despite the factors that may put us apart and allowed students to connect through their passion.

Prosser, Chiara

Name of work: Insole for Plantar Fasciitis  

Medium: Product Design, Biomechanics

Concept: Plantar Fasciitis is one of the most common orthopaedic complaints. People who are constantly on foot, such as citizens in Hong Kong, are at high risk of it as consistent pressure on the foots tissue is one of the many causes. It can be hard to find the  time or place to do subtle and effective stretches, the only form of treatment  for the condition as surgery and medication is advised against. There are products to assist with stretching and foot support but with their bulky appearance, they can  be inconvenient and only worn in select places.

Aim (Purpose): To create a foot sole that will provide support and a stretch function to treat foot conditions affecting the bottom of one’s foot. Namely, Plantar Fasciitis.


HSC Information Processes & Technology

Marsh, Callum

Marsh, Callum

Digital software and hardware systems are becoming more and more integrated into our lives. It seems like every day, more and more high-tech products are being developed for us. But how are they manufactured? Callum investigated the benefits of automated manufacturing systems and developed one of his own using Lego Mindstorm robotics and developing his own code to run it.


HSC Visual Art

Chau, Justin
Destombe, Louis
Fuge, Lucy
Tam, Kingston

Chau, Justin

Name of work: Animation Invasion & Clash of the Justiverse (aka COTJ)  

Medium: Cartoon and animation series (Animation Invasion), Card game (COTJ)  

Concept: A pair of works meant to show new ideas and entertain audiences of any type, using my cartoon-style art.  

Animation Invasion is a series of artworks which aim to experiment with my art: how they would adapt to different mediums such as crowding up in a large artwork and even adding my characters to real life photographs. Parts of the series include physical artworks, a large canvas, moving animations and photo-manipulation, all populated by dozens of cartoon characters and their interactions with their medium.  

Clash of the Justiverse is a physical card game with endearing art and a card design system based on feedback from pre-existing card games. It draws inspiration from many physical or virtual card games such as Yu-Gi-Oh, Plants vs. Zombies Heroes and Hearthstone. The objective is to summon units to defeat your opponent’s units and defeat the enemy hero first. In the design process, I brainstorm new ideas to create and evolve unique card designs, which are both innovative and easy to understand.

Destombe, Louis

Name of work: Culture creators  

Medium: Sculpture and photo media  

Concept: My body of work is to show people how you can display different cultures with different animals from different places that represent me. I have taken photos of the creatures in different habitats to show the crossover of cultures that I experience each day.

Fuge, Lucy

Name of work: Baxter’s Battle  

Medium: Mixed media – acrylic, clay  

Concept: My major work is a representation of the rare condition that my brother suffers from, PANS/PANDAS, an auto-immune disorder that causes inflammation in the brain and disrupts a child’s cognitive and motor abilities. My collection of works includes a portrait painting using gestural strokes, an acrylic pouring painting and a ceramic sculpture with acrylic pouring to portray the main symptoms and how they have affected his life. Through the application of these mediums I hope to convey the feelings of struggle, confusion and frustration at the loss of control and how debilitating some of the symptoms can be. My work hopes to raise awareness of PANS/PANDAS and provide solidarity with my brother through the challenges he has faced. 

Tam, Kingston

Name of work: Hiatus, Muted  

Medium: Photomedia  

Concept: 2020 has been a historic year for Hong Kong. I want to capture the contrast between the quietness, the muted city and re-emergence of people when coming out of lockdown. I have named the booklet, which is a part of my major work Muted, which documents the dark corners of Hong Kong and conveys a quiet mood, a temporary silence. The 16 black and white images in the booklet are influenced by Fan Ho, who documented moments in Hong Kong half a century ago. These images help fill in gaps in the storytelling while the 6 coloured big prints- Hiatus aim to present the light within the darkness.


IB Visual Art

Young, Hayden

Young, Hayden

Curatorial Rationale

The Evolving Self is an oeuvre that explores the negotiation between individual and collective identities. Arranged in a storyboard format, the persona shifts from being an innately innocent child shielded from the knowledge of the evil, becoming gradually corrupted by the world’s harsh realities to arriving at self-acceptance as an adult. Through the course of my exhibition, I endeavour to represent how “placing” allow one to shift between multiple markers of identity. By curating my exhibition in a linear fashion, I intend to emulate how the persona’s quality of innocence dims and imagination coarsens as his life progresses. It is only when he understands the struggle against conformity as a shared experience, he stands taller and rises closer to the light. 

In Home, the iguana is a spiritual totem of contentment and peace in life. Imbued with an aura of innocence and naivety, the persona sets on a journey of imagination. The reminiscences of Hong Konger’s childhood memories are shown through the use of historic “tonglau” as the piece’s backdrop and the symbolic treatment of “watermelon balls” and plastic bag kites. This coupled with a surrealist melting clock harks back to the city’s history as a toy-manufacturing capital. The transforming notion of home is examined through the juxtaposition between reality and the persona’s dream of living for imagination alone. The chosen dark frame coupled with the narrow beam accent lighting further signals to the viewer that his ambitions are still constrained by his surrounding darkness. 

Query grapples with the negotiation of queer desire and the option of secluding oneself within a muted existence. The persona’s deeply preoccupied gaze with his counterpart in the shadows represents his act of self-loving defiance that demands not his revision but the revision of others’ attitudes about the prevailing principle of concealment over revealment and how the viewer within the darkened exhibition space must search themselves for the “truth” of their subliminal prejudices. Contrary to the peripheral work, Home, the viewer’s secretive presence and onlooking perspective expose them as the subject, rather than the gaze, an interactive element that begins with an observation in wide-angle to an increasingly intimate lens through the course of the exhibition. 

Two-Selves is a continuation of Query that deals with the contestation between the quest for self-improvement and the oppressive propriety of family life, echoing the interplay between light and dark in the oeuvre. Positioned near the centre of the exhibition space, the persona appears to be caught in a limbo between two worlds and between tradition and modernity, which is reflected in the two peripheral works Home and Urbanity respectively. This is superimposed by the doppelgangers in red-blue contrasting colours, which captures the concept of intersections in identity. In the lower composition, the water running down the shower drain visually echo the malleable Chinese characters in the second last work Unmasking. This work centres on the tension between the beliefs in a single absolute identity and a fluid construction of identity. 

I have deliberately positioned my sequential work, Nonconformist, on a tall plinth, at a level where it can be closely observed by the viewer in the shape of a semi-circle. This was done to ensure that the viewer was able to see the indefinite reflections of the imagery on the four sides of the box. An atmosphere of intimacy can also be felt as the shattered glass pieces demand the viewer to seek greater details in the piece. The act of shattering the glass is also a deconstructive reading into identity in its purest form, as if the viewer is peering into the multiple layers of his identity. The connects with the preceding still life drawing, which captures the reflective surfaces and the translucent nature of glass bottles, echoing the interplay between light and dark that is also one of concealment and revealment. 

In the sequential lens media, I selected 5 out of 7 my printed photos as the expression of the subjects interfered with the coherence of the exhibition. I opted for anonymous figures to amplify the oeuvre’s moody and strangely filmic quality, which is reinforced in Double-Decker Train’s chiaroscuro lighting. 

Life is a constant negotiation. It is in the quest nonconformity we find our truest selves.

Performing Arts

The performance work of the HSC drama students, IB and HSC Music students is usually performed to an audience or in front of examiners. Whilst neither having an audience or examiners to watch our performances we did record the performances for submission to the appropriate exam boards for both subjects. From our collection of recordings we were then able to create a single video recital of both drama and music, which is what you will see here today. The musicians were expected to produce between a 10 and 20 minute recital, whilst the drama students presented an 8 minute monologue. The diversity and range of topics covered in both subjects has been incredible. 


HSC Drama

Botfield, Ashley
Cheng, Thomas
Fuge, Lucy
Utamchandani, Rohana

Botfield, Ashley

Year 12 Music and Drama Recital 2020 - (YouTube)

50:01 Ashley Botfield – 'Virginia' by Virginia Woolf

Fuge, Lucy

Year 12 Music and Drama Recital 2020 - (YouTube)

19:57 Lucy Fuge – 'Talk Radio' by Eric Bogosian

Utamchandani, Rohana

Year 12 Music and Drama Recital 2020 - (YouTube)

1:15:24 Rohana Utamchandani – 'A Leap Year Leap' by Walter Ben Hare


HSC Music 1

Cheng, Thomas
Morgan, Harrison
Utamchandani, Rohana

Cheng, Thomas

Year 12 Music and Drama Recital 2020 - (YouTube)

16:29 Thomas Cheng – 'Scumbag' (Goody Grace, ft. Blink 182)
46:31 Thomas Cheng – 'My Ex’s Best Friend' (Machine Gun Kelly)

Morgan, Harrison

Year 12 Music and Drama Recital 2020 - (YouTube)

13:10 Harrison Morgan – 'Mama Mia' (ABBA)
43:59 Harrison Morgan – 'You’ve Got a Friend in Me' (R. Newman)

Students may choose to complete compositions instead of performances as an elective for Music 1 HSC. Harrison is an expert with music software called Digital Audio Workstations (DAW’s). He uses this to create sounds using synthesis, structure compositions and edit sounds using effects. Through the use of multiple layers of sound, known as multi-tracking he can create contrasting textures and entries of the individual layers of sound. For HSC he has also been expected to notate his work, which he has done using staff notation in the score writing software called Dorico. In the case of his first composition “Sick” he has invented alternative notation to reflect the way the various filters affect the timbre of the sound.

Utamchandani, Rohana

Year 12 Music and Drama Recital 2020 - (YouTube)

8:50 Rohana Utamchandani – 'Requiem' (From Dear Evan Hansen) (M. Park, J.L. Thompson, L. Dreyfus)
40:31 Rohana Utamchandani – 'Hold Me While You Wait' (L. Capaldi)
1:04:53 Rohana Utamchandani – 'Own My Own' (C. Schönberg)


IB Music

Chan, Davina
Leung, Janice

Chan, Davina

Year 12 Music and Drama Recital 2020 - (YouTube)

0:45 Davina Chan - 'Fantasia No. 1' (G.P. Telemann)
27:20 Davina Chan – 'Una Folia A Roma' (R. Galli)
57:01 Davina Chan – 'Serenade Populaire' (P. Lewis)
1:08:19
Davina Chan – 'Sea Echo' (S. Adams)

Leung, Janice

Year 12 Music and Drama Recital 2020 - (YouTube)

4:21 Janice Leung – 'Piano Sonata No. 16 K. 570, in B flat' (W.A. Mozart)
32:54 Janice Leung – 'Moderato and Nocturne' (B. Britten)
1:00:55 Janice Leung – 'Top Liner' (J. Lamb)
1:12:03 Janice Leung – 'Sherlock Medley' (P. Pietschmann, D. Arnold, Arr. J. Leung)

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