CONTEXT
FLOATING
DISSOLVING
RIPPLING
China’s 295 million floating population of rural migrant workers has resulted in a missing middle generation in more than 80% of the country’s rural families today. The rural households are dissolved, fundamentally challenging the nuclear family model.
A ripple effect of domesticity is identified by the architectural research on the ordinary self-built family houses of these rural families. In contrast to the modern nuclear family flat as a fixed domain with clear separation, ‘rippling’ as a way of living means to settle in liminality: Boundaries do not separate but bind; Thresholds are not to be passed by but inhabited. In other words, rippling renders a liminal state of constant emerging, unfolding and becoming. What this entails and enables is always being attentive to others, anticipating negotiation, mediation and association. This is vital to forming resilient assemblages of social and economic security that hinge on inter-generational and cross-household dependency.
Not to romanticise, the practice of ‘floating’, ‘dissolving’ and ‘rippling’ is opportunistic, and essentially a survival tactic of the marginalised. As vulnerable participants situated within and subordinated to the capitalist machine, instead of confronting, they find ways to relate to the agents of power. These are actions with no lexical declarations, struggles with no overt conflicts and stories with no hero or heroine. Yet, tremendous knowledge lies in the capturing of latent and temporal dispositions in order to find possibilities between dominant forces, agents and systems, which may lead to altering the interplay between them. Diminished and overlooked by the dominant culture as well as the paternalistic model of experts’ leadership, this knowledge is dispersed and circulated as part of the daily life in the margins.
Academic Publications:
Rippling: Towards Untamed Domesticity, The Journal of Architecture, 2023 [link]
Collectivisation, Paradox, and Resistance: The Architecture of People’s Commune in China, The Journal of Architecture, 2023 [link]
Structured Ambiguity: Scroll as Method, AA Files 79, 2023 (special feature)
A ripple effect of domesticity is identified by the architectural research on the ordinary self-built family houses of these rural families. In contrast to the modern nuclear family flat as a fixed domain with clear separation, ‘rippling’ as a way of living means to settle in liminality: Boundaries do not separate but bind; Thresholds are not to be passed by but inhabited. In other words, rippling renders a liminal state of constant emerging, unfolding and becoming. What this entails and enables is always being attentive to others, anticipating negotiation, mediation and association. This is vital to forming resilient assemblages of social and economic security that hinge on inter-generational and cross-household dependency.
Not to romanticise, the practice of ‘floating’, ‘dissolving’ and ‘rippling’ is opportunistic, and essentially a survival tactic of the marginalised. As vulnerable participants situated within and subordinated to the capitalist machine, instead of confronting, they find ways to relate to the agents of power. These are actions with no lexical declarations, struggles with no overt conflicts and stories with no hero or heroine. Yet, tremendous knowledge lies in the capturing of latent and temporal dispositions in order to find possibilities between dominant forces, agents and systems, which may lead to altering the interplay between them. Diminished and overlooked by the dominant culture as well as the paternalistic model of experts’ leadership, this knowledge is dispersed and circulated as part of the daily life in the margins.
Academic Publications:
Rippling: Towards Untamed Domesticity, The Journal of Architecture, 2023 [link]
Collectivisation, Paradox, and Resistance: The Architecture of People’s Commune in China, The Journal of Architecture, 2023 [link]
Structured Ambiguity: Scroll as Method, AA Files 79, 2023 (special feature)
FLOATING, DISSOLVING, RIPPLING
Scroll drawing by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng
Film footage and editing by Chen Zhan
[A new version updated in October 2023]
SCROLL AS METHOD: STRUCTURED AMBIGUITY
Scroll Lightbox Installation
Permanent Collection of the Architectural Association (AA)
On display at the AA reception, London, U.K., since 2019
Jingru (Cyan) Cheng
CONTEXT
Floating, Dissolving, Rippling ︎︎︎
FIELDWORK
Material Dependencies ︎︎︎
House Foundations ︎︎︎
Chair & Active Waiting ︎︎︎
Situated Imaginaries ︎︎︎
Collective Happening ︎︎︎
FILM TRILOGY
On the Margins ︎︎︎
The Hall ︎︎︎
Till Ashes Turn into Pines ︎︎︎
Back to PROJECT ︎︎︎
Meet the TEAM ︎︎︎
Go to EXHIBITION ︎︎︎