DOCUMENTARY

ON THE MARGINS

The short documentary film looks into the everyday practice of the dissolved household in Shigushan village, Wuhan, China. It is to learn from the marginalised community who have mastered—as a matter of survival—precarity, imposed by agents of power way beyond their control. They settle in liminality, inhabit thresholds and enact interdependency.

Alternative imaginaries are not something to be invented anew, but have already existed in the here and now. To engage the present as an open moment is to engage the situated ideas, critiques and potentialities, as well as constraints, embedded in the narratives, objects and practices of the everyday life.

The margin is indeed a space of suffering and struggles, but also a profound edge where alternatives are conceptualised and often improvised. To engage the margin as a space of radical openness requires the capacity to see. To see from the mundane moments, from the peculiar spaces, from the partial perspectives, and from the vulnerable depth. To see differently is to know, to position and to live differently.

ON THE MARGINS (v.2023) has been awarded the Architecture Short Film Award at the Milano Design Film Festival︎︎︎(2024), the Best Short Film at Venice Architecture Film Festival︎︎︎(2023) and the Special Mention at Arquiteturas Film Festival︎︎︎, Porto, Portugal (2023).

The 2022 edition of the film was featured at the 3rd International Architecture and Ethnography Seminar and Exhibition Crisis︎︎︎ in Santiago, Chile (2022).

An initial 2021 edition premiered at Driving the Human Festival (Berlin, 2021) and was further screened at Mañana Bold x Atelierfrankfurt (Frankfurt, 2021) and St. Moritz Art Film Festival (2022).

ON THE MARGINS

Documentary Film, Colour, Chinese, Eng subtitle, 12min. 2023
Co-Directed by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng & Chen Zhan
Local crew: Chen Zhan, Mengfan Wang, Yizhuo Gao, Yunshi Zhou
Editing: Chen Zhan, Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

PROLOGUE TO RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING
Film Installation
Driving the Human Festival, Berlin, Germany, 2021
Jingru (Cyan) Cheng & Chen Zhan

PROLOGUE TO RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING
Film premiere with a panel discussion
Driving the Human Festival, Berlin, Germany, 2021
Jingru (Cyan) Cheng & Chen Zhan

CONTEXT
Floating, Dissolving, Rippling ︎︎︎

DOCUMENTARY
On the Margins ︎︎︎
Filmic Collage ︎︎︎

FIELDWORK
Material Dependencies ︎︎︎
Chair & Active Waiting ︎︎︎
Situated Imaginaries ︎︎︎
Collective Happening ︎︎︎

EXPERIMENTAL
The Hall ︎︎︎
Field Synesthesia ︎︎︎

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