theory

Dear Bedroom, living room and study room,

We’ve known each other for quite a short time now, you used to be someone else. I believe I changed you a bit, with my expectations, my hopes and dreams and my presence.
What energy use to hang around in the air? Was the window open a lot? Fresh ai flowing trough you, the celling suggests the opposite. The dull yellow walls and celling give a sense of history too, how did they feel here? Of course I see different things when looking at these walls, I saw potential, new colours. The girl you used to be saw something else something I could not imaging for her.

I would like to tell you I am on a journey, to find myself and to find my way. You’ve had quite the history so far already but you too can still learn a thing or two. Maybe the two of us could collaboration, finding allies and solidarity with others.

You used to be a office building, in a different time with different standards and needs. In this very recent time we are even asking the question if office buildings are needed. Thinking about it, you haven’t changed a lot then because to me you could still be a office building. But working where you live comes with new needs we now come to realise, maybe you and I can find a way to make it work. To incorporate work with living, something which has lost it’s meaning these days.

The room I live in is not just a vessel for me to hold. To lock myself up, shelter me from rain and wind. It’s not just emty, made by mad made bricks.
This building holds a story, history of romance, families, especially in this case careers and dreams for the future.
“Not recognizing these things as having their own vibrancy and vitality 5 is indicative of being a part of a system in which objectivity requires us to remove subjectivity from material things.”

The traditional practice ‘Feng Shui’ focusses more on the surroundings, how the energy around us effects us more than we think. It origin lies in China but apart from Hong Kong is not practised how it used to. Traditions and culture became a secondaire priority and economical growth the main focus.
Should such a old and beautiful tradition be forgotten? “culture is fluid, leads one to consider the capacity to change culture. If culture is fluid and changing, then it can be changed.”

A room is not just a room, memories are made, they are the stage of life. With Natural fading and big cities taking up more and more space buildings are the new natural landscape. We should for that treat them as human being and living things. Maybe my those standards it will also improve them.

“In a broad sense, culture is everywhere: it is part of the way we walk, talk, move through space, the languages we speak, the values we have, the ways we think of ourselves, how we think of the world, et cetera.”

Take care room.
Or even better, I’ll take care of you.

Renske

Since I’m spending so much of my time inside it became a important part of my life. A longs ide corona, staying inside the whole time and major news stories my anxiety became a bigger problem. So for this project I started to look at my living space differently and trying to make it work for my, and helping me with my anxiety problems.
The art of Feng Shui focusses on how the space around you improves ‘the good energy’. The cultural movement is from China originally but almost forgot it expect for Hongkong (not really China anyway right) who kept it as a important cultural asset. Feng Shui got picked up in the west a few years back, it was featured in a lot of magazines for middle aged woman, trying to improve their space.

culture is fluid, leads one to consider the capacity to change culture. If culture is fluid and changing, then it can be changed. -
In a broad sense, culture is everywhere: it is part of the way we walk, talk, move through space, the languages we speak, the values we have, the ways we think of ourselves, how we think of the world, et cetera. (p 89)
By granting myself the ‘I’ everything was granted an ‘I’ and there was an intersectional subjectivity that provided a network of kin and care that went beyond a humancentric approach to the
In the same way that I hope we would respect and consider all human individuals, I would respect and consider the ancient ceramics that I am working with; to consider them not just as vessels to be used by humans, but as vessels unto themselves, having certain material capacities.
world. This included the many sets of relations I have with the built environment, with trees, with soil, with ancient ceramics, with other/non-human animals, with everything around me. By reclaiming myself, I recognized the larger world within which I was deeply entangled. (p91 - 92)
The solar calendar, the lunar calendar, cyclical time, linear time, among other forms of time, all happen at the same time. There are so many different forms of time one has to take into account; and this is something that archaeologists do quite often. (p2)
In our contemporary moment, we have lost the ability to take time out to think, to write, to draw, to wonder, to let our curiosity dictate a research pattern. More and more we are propelled into a system that requires all labor to produce at breakneck speed, suggesting that somehow the survival- of-the-fittest model of labor capitalism is achieved with a lack of all human needs: food, sleep, air, love, et cetera. The late capitalist model has alienated the human body to such a degree that we no longer are allowed to be human to be considered successful. (p93)