Faculty of Design

Industrial Design

Jenny Zhen

Cabinet

Cabinet explores immigration through themes of self, place, and culture. It reflects a cycle of departure and return—immigration as an ongoing movement, and migration as the eventual return. With twelve divisions, two sliding panels, and one drawer, the cabinet invites interaction, allowing shifting displays that echo the layered experiences of immigration. Inspired by traditional Chinese apothecary storage, it curates artifacts of a life and captures the bridging of the exterior/public realm into the interior/private home. The sliding panels symbolize the tensions and dualities of parallel lives formed through immigration. By inviting audiences to engage physically and conceptually, Cabinet activates dialogue about the systemic forces that shape belonging, mobility, and memory—issues deeply intwined with sustainability when viewed through relational and systems-thinking frameworks.

“What do we keep hidden? What do we offer to be seen? What shifts in meaning as it crosses into a new context?”