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A small handcrafted model of an oden cart made from laser-cut plywood with a nostalgic mood, with a blue slanted roof and translucent white tissue paper panels around the sides. The cart has two wooden wheels, a front handle, and an open cooking area filled with miniature wooden oden pieces. Tiny plates filled with different skewers, sake bottles, and cups sit on the counter, and also a small sake shelf is attached to the back of the cart. The wood is painted in warm brown with a natural wood texture. There is a cable extending from the rear, indicating an internal light source.

Portable Warmth

Jade Xia

Laser-cut plywood components assembled with hot glue, LED light, finished with acrylic paint and colored tissue paper

Undergraduate
This piece I made is an oden cart shaped light holder. Because I was introduced to a project with light, I thought of the theme associated with "warmth" at first. The initial idea was that when I was a child in China, I often went to convenience stores to buy oden during winter time. The warmth that stretched from the palm of my hand to the bottom of my heart left a deep impression on me. Therefore, oden is also one of my favorite foods. However, making just a cup of oden would seem too simple. So I thought of the traditional oden carts often seen in Japanese anime and dramas set in the Showa period that often appear in Japanese anime or dramas. Their designs are very distinctive and full of nostalgia, which made me decide to take the Japanese oden cart as a reference for my work but further design a oden cart through my own idea. I want to create a warm atmosphere with the lighting as a whole, so that the light could pass through the oden pot, giving the impression that the oden pot is boiling.