页
联系
简介
and In-Between
Critic: Dawn Gilpin
ARCH 409 representation+design research
Death, as the major aftermath of many crises, or the destination of this life, has a long history in reframing the social relationship and the urban form. Constructed space is not only providing a position for one to transform from one form of being to the other, but for those who live as well. Through the study of histories of ritualization and its various cultural forms, the composition of death would reveal that it’s relative to its materialized and dematerialized form. In this project, I would like to examine the circulation of lives on multiple scales, from human bodies, society and the spread of the COVID-19 virus. In mapping out how the pandemic has reshaped circulation, thus forming a better understanding of constructed space due to the society we live in. Looking into the relationship of a crisis and its impact on our immediate surrounding, I focused on the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Here I seek to materialize the reality of this event that took hundreds of thousands of lives and visualize a site for the ritualization of death and grieving. In realization of the circulation and our bodies’ relationship to it, this project reimagines a way through which we can bring these terrible deaths to the collective memory. Therefore, “we are claiming the act of mourning”, through history, sites and narrative, in imagining a way to better live with death.
Architecture proposed a narrative of the emptiness, not boundaries, for people and their immediate surrounding. It’s designing the framework of spatial and experimental elements that construct the senses for human beings. Architectures and urban spaces are responsible in all discourses, as space stands as a material realization of the social relations/structure and political powers.
It’s the collective cultural imagination and collaborative work of human beings.
The sequential spaces that we experience, from the home, the ambulance, the hospital, the church and the cemetery are paths that lead to death. This path in reciprocity manner, has shape our norms as well. What communicates above and below shouldn’t be the military trucks but the rituals shall step in.
“Originally, the mini-medium bus could only drag one or two corpses at a time, put two paper coffins and a stretcher. There were four more dead people. The two shifts day and night were too late to pull. Director Shi ordered the stretcher paper coffin to be discarded, the chair was removed, and the space was left to hold a few more corpses. Mine was supposed to be stuffed with eight pieces, and the technician filled up ten pieces. If there are two children, put 11 pieces.”
”We were told to stay in our own small cell.” Coron Mina complained to me on the phone. She was isolated in a Manhattan apartment. “The enemy is on the street, in public space, and in public transportation. Home must be the safest place.”
“Originally, the mini-medium bus could only drag one or two corpses at a time, put two paper coffins and a stretcher. There were four more dead people. The two shifts day and night were too late to pull. Director Shi ordered the stretcher paper coffin to be discarded, the chair was removed, and the space was left to hold a few more corpses. Mine was supposed to be stuffed with eight pieces, and the technician filled up ten pieces. If there are two children, put 11 pieces.”
”We were told to stay in our own small cell.” Coron Mina complained to me on the phone. She was isolated in a Manhattan apartment. “The enemy is on the street, in public space, and in public transportation. Home must be the safest place.”
References
Fang, Fang. “Wuhan Diary : Dispatches from a Quarantined City.” Book. Translated by Berry, Michael. [New York, NY]: HarpverVia an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2020.
Ariès, Philippe. “L’homme Devant La Mort.” Book. Univers Historique. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1977.
Forty, Adrian. “Words and Buildings : A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture.” Book. New York, N.Y.: Thames & Hudson, 2000