Designers at Venice Biennale bring society together
- By Rory Howard
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 2, 2016
Nurturing new social ties
Designers Xie Xiaoying, Huang Haitao and Tong Yan from View Unlimited Design Studio have taken the residents of 66-76 Yangmeizhu Alleyway as their subject in their ongoing project of social rejuvenation.
Yangmeizhu is a narrow alleyway in the center of Beijing. Some of the buildings are hundreds of years old, and one family, the Wangs, have occupied the same home for 22 generations. Other families and individuals, however, are much newer to the neighborhood and have moved to China's capital in search of work.
When people come and go, it is hard to create a sense of neighborliness. But View Unlimited's designers noticed something about the area that is bringing residents together while also beautifying the small area they share. What is bringing people together are plants.
View Unlimited installed an area called "Floral Cottage," making the most of the little available space down Yangmeizhu lane. The designers hope that this area can bring people together.
"How could we reconnect the community to the mainstream lifestyle and eventually link to the future development?" Designer Huang asks. "The research result indicated that 'communal planting' seems to be a good common factor for the 20 households, so that the individuals could participate in the shared public space."
View Unlimited's designers Xie Xiaoying, Huang Haitao and Tong Yan will present the people of Yangmeizhu lane through films and pictures, and present how their work will help the community through two exhibits at the Biennale.
The first is an indoor media installation where visitors can see and hear the residents of the Yangmeizhu. These video installations illustrate the resident's daily lives and how the "Floral Cottage" has helped them come together. The designers approached their project from a sociological point of view as much as a design one.
"Compared with the designs that we have done before, this project is more to the side of social work or sociological study," Tong Yan Said. "Our object is not to make a spectacle for tourism and consumption, but to contribute to social healing."
It was important for the designers to include Yangmeizhu's residents in the project since after all, it is the residents that this project aims to help.
The second exhibit "Home. Communal Garden" is an outdoor, interactive piece.
The designers used inspiration from the makeshift planters they saw while doing research. Down the old Beijing alleyways, residents use old discarded bottles, wash basins, and loose bricks to grow produce. The natural and green approach is incorporated in "Home. Communal Garden," which is made from discarded kitchen utensils and debris from buildings.
Visitors to the Venice Biennale will interact with the installation by planting and harvesting the flowers and crops. Participants at the Venice Biennale can come together and get to know others through their activities, much as the "Floral Cottage" project in Yangmeizhu hopes to do.
Whether this project will help the residents of Yangmeizhu in the long run has yet to be seen. Xie and Tong say that this is an extended, long running project, so only time can tell how this little green space will help the people living around it.
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