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Geyuzhen Zhu

MFA in Graphic Design - 2 Yr Path — Graduate Graphic Design
Course:
661A Graduate Thesis
Faculty:
Michael Neal

Fragment Archive

My thesis explores how design can help us organize, prioritize our memories, and even intentionally forget. By applying design principles, I designed an interactive exhibition and a mobile application that encourages users to organize their memories, and promotes emotional clarity.
Learning Outcomes:
I learned that design is not just about organizing visual information—it’s about shaping emotional experience. Through this project, I realized how powerful it can be to use design not to preserve everything, but to create space: for clarity, for reflection, for letting go.
The Impermanent Collection is an interactive exhibition that invites visitors to explore memory as something fluid, fragile, and designable. Through an installation that guides participants in curating their own digital photos, the exhibition transforms the act of remembering into a physical and emotional experience. Visitors make intentional choices about which memories to keep and which to let go—leaving not with a phone full of images, but with a printed memory booklet that reflects their personal archive.
Fragment App is a mobile tool designed to help users navigate digital memory overload with care and intention. Through emotion-based tagging, swipe-to-curate interactions, and visual simulations of memory fading, the app encourages users to reflect on their photos—not as data, but as personal fragments of identity. It reframes forgetting as a mindful act, helping users build a digital archive that is emotionally meaningful, not endlessly accumulated.