Creativity in Exile

This work reflects the quiet turbulence experienced by engineers, designers, and artists navigating layoffs and the rapid acceleration of AI in recent years. I visualized collective anxiety as drifting sea creatures—jellyfish, crabs, fish—suspended in a surreal sky, weightless yet searching for direction. These floating forms embody uncertainty and displacement, yet also persistence. Even in instability, humans retain a singular strength: the ability to transform fear into imagination and disruption into new creative language. The piece becomes a reminder that our stories matter—that together we continue floating, creating, supporting one another, and rediscovering how to shine in the evolving era of AI. Created for SundAI Foundation, an AI hackathon community founded at MIT and Harvard, this second-anniversary poster responds to more than 100 weeks of continuous hackathons and experimentation. Rather than celebrating technological advancement alone, it centers the people behind it—the builders, designers, and artists adapting alongside technology. The illustration was entirely hand-crafted in Clip Studio Paint as a digital painting. The client intentionally chose a distinctly human, non-AI-generated aesthetic to reinforce the community’s core belief: technology evolves rapidly, but its purpose must remain human. Through organic textures and emotionally expressive forms, the piece asserts that innovation should serve people, not overshadow them. Designed as a highly adaptable key visual, the artwork extends beyond a single poster—scaled across printed event posters, pitch deck covers, promotional materials, and on-site installations for the February anniversary event.