Celine's Creative Portfolio
SoftSkills
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Like to listen to people’s stories
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Community Engagement
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Research
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Translator
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Fieldwork
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Empathy
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Analysing Emotions
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Emotional literacy through food connections
HardSkills
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AutoCAD
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SketchUp
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Microsoft Office
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Adobe Illustrator
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Adobe InDesign
Language
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English
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Chinese
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Cantonese
Hello, I'm Celine
An interior designer by training, a designer-researcher by practice.
My work spans spatial design and community contexts — shaping functional, expressive spaces while fostering dialogue, shared growth, and a deeper sense of belonging through participatory projects and research.
Education
BA (Hons) Design For SociaL Futures (2024-2026)
Lasalle College of the Arts, University of the Arts
Diploma in Interior Design (2021-2024)
Lasalle College of the Arts
Nitec in Interior Design
Institute of Technical Education (2019-2020)
GCE N(T) Level Certificate
Whitley Secondary School (2015-2018)
Work Experince
AA+C Design Studio (Aug-Oct 2023) - Design Intern
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Assisted in the development and execution of design concepts for residential and commercial projects
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Supported the creation of mood boards, design presentations, and 3D renderings
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Gained hands-on experience in space planning, material selection, and project management
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Contributed to site visits and inspections to ensure quality and design standards were met
Shangri-La Hotel Singapore (Jun-Jul 2023) - Banquet Waitress
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Delivered excellent customer service during events and banquets
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Coordinated with event staff to ensure smooth setup, service, and breakdown of banquet halls.
Projects
Updates are on the way!
Feel free to view other works here!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/celine-wong-zq/
Traces of Aftertaste
January 2026 - April 2026
“How familiar food evoke emotional connection within communities”
Food is more than nourishment. Through familiar tastes and shared rituals, it surfaces emotions often buried in routine — comfort, memory, joy, and connection. This framework explores how ordinary acts of eating become bridges between generations and vessels of collective belonging.
This project explores how everyday food practices evoke emotions and sustain community bonds, focusing on how familiar food carries emotional meaning through habit and memory.
By revealing these often unseen emotions, it enables individuals to recognise their personal experiences as part of a shared community.
The framework shows how food acts as an emotional anchor, it is a way of rediscovering emotions that often remain hidden in routine. Familiar foods and everyday gestures carry layers of meaning — joy, comfort, memory, and familiarity — that sustain connections within communities. Through repetition and shared experience, food becomes more than nourishment; it becomes a bridge between generations, a vessel of belonging, and a reminder of how ordinary acts can hold extraordinary emotional weight.
Joy
Uplifts or excites, creating moments of delight.
Memory
Tied to past experiences, carrying nostalgia and personal stories.
Food as an Emotional Anchor
Everyday food we return to.
Comfort
Soothes, offering warmth, safety, and a sense of belonging.
Familiarity
Becomes routine through habit, grounding in predictability.
Community Fieldwork
For the project, two sessions each month were facilitated in Sembawang Crescent community. These sessions created a consistent rhythm of engagement, allowing relationships to develop over time and enabling participants to reflect on their everyday food practices in depth. Each session was designed as a participatory encounter, where community members gathered to share stories, memories, and emotions connected to familiar dishes.
Beyond Sembawang, the interventions were extended to Share‑A‑Pot (SAP) at the Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea (OLSS) community, where weekly one‑to‑one engagements provided a more personal space for participants to express reflections and emotions around familiar foods.
By sustaining this regular fieldwork across both collective and individual encounters, the project was able to trace patterns of resonance within the community, positioning design not only as a method of documentation but also as a catalyst for reflection, connection, and shared meaning.
Design Interventions
Artefacts—such as card‑deck prompts, worksheets, and food charts—were introduced to guide reflection and dialogue. These tools provided accessible ways for participants to express feelings visually and narratively, mapping likes, dislikes, and emotional responses. The repeated structure of the sessions allowed themes to emerge gradually, revealing how food gestures function as emotional anchors across contexts and generations.
Image taken on 4th session on 14 March 2026 (Sembawang)
Image taken on 17 March 2026 with Auntie Agnes (SAP-OLSS)
Design Interventions
Artefacts—such as card‑deck prompts, worksheets, and food charts—were introduced to guide reflection and dialogue throughout the weeks as sessions progressed. These tools provided accessible ways for participants to express feelings visually and narratively, mapping likes, dislikes, and emotional responses. The repeated structure of the sessions allowed themes to emerge gradually, revealing how food gestures function as emotional anchors across contexts and generations.
Scanned image of Community Map
Community coming together for the mapping - 10 January 2026
Conversational Card Deck
The conversational card deck was created as a simple, participatory tool to spark dialogue about everyday food practices. Each card carried prompts that encouraged residents to share personal memories, emotions, and reflections connected to familiar dishes. By choosing and responding to cards, participants could engage at their own pace, making the process approachable and comfortable. The deck acted as both a visual anchor and a catalyst for conversation, transforming everyday reflections into collective voices and records of resonance.
Scanned image of Conversational Card Deck
Auntie Ginger sharing her respone - 21 January 2026
Pick A Favourite - Worksheet
The first set of worksheets helped me connect more closely with the community. Using mostly visuals made sharing easier and more approachable. Through these activities, I discovered not just the foods residents enjoyed, but also the emotions and memories tied to those choices as they shared their stories.
Scanned image of Community's responeses on the worksheet
Community sharing their responses on the worksheet - 24 January 2026
Community Map
The community map was created together with residents of Sembawang, who marked out neighbourhood areas and places they regularly visit. This participatory exercise documented everyday routes and gathering points while also giving the research team insight into the rhythms of local life. As residents traced familiar paths—markets, food stalls, parks, and meeting spots—the map became both a record of shared routines and a tool for dialogue, reflecting how space and movement shape community connections.
Scanned image of Community's responeses on the worksheet
Community putting their responses on the worksheet - 14 March 2026
Like and Dislike - Worksheet
This worksheet invited residents to share the foods they liked and disliked, using drawings or short writings. The activity made participation approachable and expressive, while also revealing how everyday preferences connect to emotions. Through this process, simple choices became stories, showing how likes and dislikes carry meaning beyond taste.
Community sharing their responses on the worksheet - 28 March 2026
Community putting their responses on the worksheet - 28 March 2026
Food and Feeling Chart
This chart was a visual activity where residents pasted food cut‑outs according to how they felt about each type. This made preferences visible in a simple, approachable way, while also opening space for dialogue. Beyond likes and dislikes, the chart fostered stronger community connection by surfacing emotions such as joy, comfort, or discomfort tied to everyday food.
Voices from Community
Community members shared their food stories through drawings, writings, and conversations. These voices revealed how familiar dishes carry emotions like joy, comfort, memory, and familiarity. By capturing these expressions, the project transformed everyday food experiences into collective records of feeling, showing how food connects people beyond taste.
Joy
These voices show how familiar dishes spark happiness and bring people together.
Actually not only coffee, basically beverages slow me down, gives me a pause to the busy schedule.. So whenever I get very busy right.. Usually when get coffee it calms me.. It gets me to think, if not I’ll keep moving..
”Everything make me happy and comfortable...I’m very simple..”
Catherine Wong (71-80 y/o)
Share-A-Pot
Lenny (41-50 y/o)
Canberra Skylife Resident’s Network
Sembawang Crescent Resident
Comfort
These voices reveal how everyday meals soothe, reassure, and create a sense of belonging.
“Porridge, cause its warm, especially I think eat something warm before going to sleep..” Especially on days when its slightly cold..”
Wee Ling (31-40 y/o)
Sembawang Crescent Resident
“Food that is made with love just taste different”
Azaree (41-50 y/o)
Sembawang Grassroot Leader
Tengah Resident
“I love steam fish, only with soya sauce.. I eat this 3-4 times a week, in the evening.. only eat steam fish and vegetables is enough.. I don’t like red meat...smell i don’t like...”
Irene Chua (71-80 y/o)
Share-A-Pot
Memory
These voices show how dishes recall family traditions, past experiences, and shared histories.
”Soup + pork & capsicum. my helper cooks.. our family buys one week supply - my mum cooks for us growing up...”
Karen Goh (31-40 y/o)
Sembawang Crescent Resident
“I do alot of times, but still cannot..”
“My grandma cannot cook, so I was surprised she could make this (mee hoon kueh) Then she loves my chicken wings”
Kim
Yio Chu Kang CC Treasurer
Sembawang Crescent Resident
”My father will buy for me marie biscuit...”
Jessie Seet (61-70 y/o)
Share-A-Pot
"They say food ah, bring a lot of memories.. Of course there’s some bad memories, but we just remember the good ones.."
Karen Ho (70/80 y/o)
HillView Resident
Familiarity
These voices highlight how repeated gestures and everyday meals sustain emotional meaning and community connection.
“Kopi，只是占roti”
通常老婆煮.."
Koh Soon Yong (61-70 y/o)
Sembawang Crescent Resident
“Biscuit.. From young eat until now.. Certain things like biscuits, this one you keep easy.. So if got nothing to eat, I eat this... I eat kosong one...”
Rosalind (51-60 y/o)
Sembawang Crescent Resident
“只喜欢白roti，每天我吃都是麦片的...
最喜欢麦片，吃这个比较健康...”
“之从有cancer以后，我都不知罐头，戒口..
很健康...”
“要健康，没有健康不可以啦”
“不要乱吃，乱吃你的body不会回来了“
Helen Goh (61-70 y/o)
Share-A-Pot
“I think its a traditional thing that we all like..
Out of breakfast, Kaya Toast is easily accecible..”
Kelly
Bukit Panjang Resident
Community Observations
From community engagements, observations and responses were gathered and organized into data, making visible the connections between food and emotion.
From there, the data was examined through the layers of emotions tied to each food type — showing how everyday dishes carry emotions in different ways.
Layers of Emotions
Based of the data collected, 20 everyday food types were introduced.
Each food was then examined through emotional layers — joy, comfort, memory, and familiarity — to show how familiar dishes carry different meanings across communities and generations
How Emotional Layers relate?
When the data was mapped, the emotional layers revealed different patterns. Some foods carried overlapping emotions flowing together. Others held more distinct meanings, with emotions separating into different paths. These relationships show how everyday dishes can anchor shared feelings or highlight contrasting experiences within the community.
Low Contrast
(intersecting emotions, shared meaning)
Low contrast foods show overlapping emotional layers. The radar chart lines touch or flow closely together, meaning different generations or community voices share similar feelings.
For example, foods like Milo or Porridge often carry comfort, memory, and familiarity across groups — their shapes look rounded and smooth, showing shared anchors.
High Contrast
(separate emotions, divergent meaning)
High contrast foods show separate emotional layers. The radar chart lines diverge or don’t meet, meaning emotions differ strongly between groups.
For example, Digestive Biscuits or Sardines may carry survival or necessity for older voices but little resonance for younger ones. The chart looks jagged and uneven, reflecting distinct anchors.
Overlapping Emotions
Some foods evoke more than one emotion at the same time. For example, a dish might bring comfort through its warmth, while also holding memory of family traditions. In the charts, this overlap appears where emotional layers intersect — showing how everyday foods can anchor shared feelings across generations and communities.
Comparison of Age Bands
By examining the data across age groups, the charts reveal how everyday foods carry different emotional anchors at different stages of life. Some foods, like kopi or porridge, shift from joy in youth to memory in older generations. Others, like kaya toast or half‑boiled eggs, show comfort concentrated in mid‑life. These comparisons highlight how food emotions evolve over time, sustaining both shared and distinct meanings across generations.
Food Types that Stands Out across Age Bands
The following food types stand out emotionally across different age bands, showing how their meanings shift from one generation to another
From Data to Design
The Emotional Table
The research publication is a consolidated print of the research..
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Creating a lens for communities to see themselves differently through food and emotion
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Transform food & emotion data into a shared language of community understanding
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Make emotional connections visible, relatable & meaningful across generations
Collective Emotions, Everyday Food
The card deck is consolidated of community voices and how they feel about those everyday food.
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Wanted community to feel seen
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Their stories are being captured and heard
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Community to find value in their presence and things they do
Responses from Community
Communities were invited back to the exhibit, where they saw their responses displayed, words they had spoken woven into the table, and their faces appearing in the video. From their reactions, it was clear they felt seen. Some even shared that the interventions helped them know their friends better, revealing new sides of people they thought they already knew.
Witnessing these reactions and listening to their responses made me feel that this project was truly worth doing.
Community Engagement Video
This video is a consolidated of engagements in the communities and how each individual's responses are unique to its own - strengthening the bond in community.
Lingers Between The Meals
August 2025 - November 2025
"In what ways can design uncover and celebrate the unseen emotions, in a community through food and cooking?"
Through shared routines such as eating together, serving one another, offering leftovers, or exchanging recipes, subtle forms of care begin to surface. These gestures may appear ordinary on the surface, yet they often carry deeper emotions of attentiveness, affection, recognition, and responsibility. Care is not always expressed directly through words — it can exist quietly in actions, habits, and rituals repeated over time.
This project explores how food and everyday dining practices can reveal hidden layers of human connection, care, and belonging within community spaces. Inspired by observations at community gatherings and care distributions, the project looks beyond food as mere sustenance and instead examines how meals, recipes, and small gestures become emotional and social exchanges.
Into the Community
For the project, the observations took place at Share-A-Pot at Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea (SAP-OLSS) and Agape Village (AV-SAP) respectively. I observed how aunties in the community interacted in the kitchen — preparing ingredients, cooking, tasting, and serving. I realized that in every shared meal, there’s more than just taste. There’s joy, pride, and care in every gesture — even in something as simple as tasting soup or serving others first.
Community Words
Through casual conversations with seniors in the communities, some words that were said held deeper meanings behind that are always unnoticed.
These moments showed me how food becomes a language of emotion and connection, expressing care and bringing people together.
“I like coming to do this weekly, its my passion & i’m enjoying it. I feel good that i can spread positivity through cooking.”
Auntie Katherine
@Agape Village
“I willingly do this cause its my passion & brings me joy to see smiles on everyone’s faces when I serve them”.
Auntie Sheila
@ SAP-OLSS
“If short of bowls, I don’t eat lah, doesn’t matter”
Auntie Irene Chua
@ SAP-OLSS
Image taken on 24 September 2025
Image taken on 23 September 2025
Image taken on 23 September 2025
Passing on Stories
/Knowledge
Food and
its Meaning
Care in Everyday Actions
Connection and Belonging
This framework explores the unspoken emotions and subtle gestures of care that exist between preparing, sharing, and eating together. While these daily acts may appear ordinary, they often carry deeper layers of attentiveness, belonging, love, and recognition. The project looks at how unseen care is embedded within routines surrounding food, and how these quiet interactions strengthen emotional and social bonds within communities.
Unseen
Emotions
Why is it Unseen?
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Emotions like care, love, and belonging are expressed quietly — through everyday actions, not words.
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They exist, but are often overlooked or taken for granted.
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They live in small habits, gestures, and shared routines — not grand acts.
Direction Perspective
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Helps make those invisible layers visible again, so people can appreciate the love and care that already exist in their community.
Concept
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Recreating that atmosphere of care and togetherness.
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Echoes the idea of “Food as Emotion”
Emotional Outcomes of food-sharing
What’s truly savored isn’t the food, but the quiet emotions it leaves behind.
The Connecting Aftertaste of Sharing a meal
SAP - Agape Village
Images taken on 8 October 2025
Emotional Residue that Food Leaves Behind.
How does my topic help/support the community?
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Repeated sharing becomes a deep ritual — turning simple meals into lasting bonds
1. Reconnecting People Emotionally
3. Passing Down Knowledge
& Culture
2. Strengthening Belonging
& Shared Identity
4. Encouraging Reflection
and Care
What message I wanna sent across, with my project?
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The ordinary acts surrounding food hold unseen emotional value that quietly builds human connection, care, and belonging.
3. Reconnection
through food
1. Rediscover the ordinary
The Repeating cycle of Emotional Bonds
2. Recognition of the unseen
Role of Design
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The purpose is to create awareness and encourage emotional reconnection — helping people slow down and notice small yet meaningful acts of care in everyday life.
“Design doesn’t always need to change what we do — sometimes, it simply helps us see what’s already there.”
Through this, I see design as a way to reconnect people — not by changing what they do, but by helping them rediscover the quiet emotions that already hold their community together.
The goal isn’t to change how people live, but to help them recognise the warmth and care that already exist within their community.
The exhibit sparked meaningful engagement, with community members responding through stories, conversations, and shared reflections.
The strong engagement and reactions from the community reflected how the exhibit resonated with shared experiences, unseen emotions, and everyday acts of connection.
Get in Touch
cwzq.creates@gmail.com
For more in-depth works