WP4 Draft-Artistic Glimmers: the Possible Role of Art Intervention in the Practice of Urban Memory Preservation
Nowadays, more people live in cities than anywhere else, to accommodate the booming population of urban dwellers, the city expands itself unceasingly, devouring nearby farmlands. In times of growths, fast development, and rapid urbanization, the city has to be in constant renovation to maintain its vitality: Skyscrapers stand in the place of where originally sat a residential community; when smoke ceased to come out of a factory’s chimney, the factory would soon be demolished and then quickly be built into something else. Vacancy is strictly not allowed. In which process produces a “crisis of memory”: preservation of memory suffers greatly under the universally adopted practice of postmodern urbanism, which advocates for treating the past as being already deracinated and thus need to be completely got rid of.
Attempts have been made to preserve a city’s memory, like constructing museums and archives, artistic attempts have also been taken, as to record the changes in the city with videos and images. However, are these approaches effective in the practice of preservation?
In my essay, I’ll explore the composition of urban memory, examine the efficiency of already existing agencies of urban memory preservation, in which process discover the implicit problems, and finally propose my solutions to those deficiencies through a close analysis of an ongoing debate over a piece of urban farmland in my own city.
The urban farmland (Abbreviated as “W land”) in discussion here, appearing in a form of merged individual farmlands taking up every corner of a gentile hillside, is situated on the old site of “Hanyang Arsenal Manufacturing Plant” (footnote*1: 汉阳兵工厂, aka “the First Arsenal Manufacturing Plants” 国民政府兵工署第一兵工厂during the second Sino-Japanese war, and “State-Run Construction Plants ” 国营建设机床厂 after the establishment of PRC). It used to function as a construction waste deposit and a trash yard; Over the latter half of the past century, it was gradually cultivated into a collective farmland by the employees of the manufacturing plant, their families living in surrounding residential communities, and rural migrants residing nearby. (footnote*2: For the purpose of disambiguation, please note that in the latter parts of my essay the term “urban farmers” exclusively describes the employees of the construction plant and their families farming on W land; since they aren’t the only group farming on W land, but the only group of subjects of memory in discussion here. )The farming practice endured time, however, was eventually put to stop in 2017, when the government announced the plan to reconstruct W land into part of Museum Jianchuan (Abbreviated as “Museum J.”), a museum cluster constituted by 8 museums themed around commemoration of the second Sino-Japanese war and the cultural habits of Chinese in the 20th century. The occupancy of the museum over W land threatens to disrupt the long-practiced lifestyle of its current utilizers, and more importantly, threatens to demolish the memory attached to the land.
The opposition between W land and Museum J., in its essence, is a manifestation of the collision between individual luminous memory glimmers and the macro narrative. The two terms are conceptualized by theorist Yaqiu Liu to differentiate different natures of memory. Macro narrative, according to theorist Yaqiu Liu (still locating definition so, according to me), is mass, significant historical events with a collective as the subject of memory, on a scale of national or larger; Fundamentally different from the state-manipulated macro narrative, luminous memory glimmer is introduced to be “trivial, scattered, individual implicit ineffable memories or traumas that usually go unseen, unvalued under the overwhelmingly strict control of the mass narrative in power.” (刘亚秋) In other words, it possesses the unique quality that allows authentic preservation on an individual scale, free from the distortion of the macro narrative.
The construction of museum J. stands on itself as an attempt to preserve urban memory. (the history of Chongqing)Although it claims to preserve the memory of the construction plant, it fails the purpose as it overwhelmingly favors macro narrative. The museum celebrates what’s championed by the macro narrative, the tie that the factory shared with the “glamourous” second Sino-Japanese war; (insert level one detail) while excludes the working-living experience of its employees, which composes a huge part of the actual memory of the factory. In other words, the museum commemorates the collective history of the factory, praised by the national machine, at the cost of disregarding the memory of the actual residents of the space.
The true memory of the factory is composed of multiple facades other than mere manufacturing life. The factory shared a strong tie with its employees; the missing facades include memories outside work hours, such as memory of how the employees became proud workers of the factory through education, how they fought through hard times when there was no food to eat, etc. W land serves as complementary. W land is a physical installation of (concept “lieux de memoire”) Multiple interviewers, including myself, have conducted interviews with the urban farmers, (Actual memory glimmers: Chen-place of socializing, meet friends; Wang-the place as embodiment of the spirit of self-sustaining and hardworking )Farming has become their unique way of commemorating their roots, their lifestyles, desired spirits, and their life outside the factory work hours, over the past century. They are the actual direct subjects of memory, however, this important part of their memory is excluded in the practice of preservation.
(Outline)We acknowledge the phenomenon, but why?
Introduce the concept of counter-memory& the power imbalance: The implicit role memory glimmers play in urban memory remain largely unrecognized. (mumford) the government tend to refuse.. and proceeds to deny…
Looking back to the debate surrounding W land, the practice of farming has become illegal after the resettlement of the factory which returned the administration right of the land back to the government, rendering the memory glimmers of the urban farmers “counter-memory”, the memory is therefore indisputably denied by the authority.
This is a clear example of macro narrative overriding memory glimmers.
(Insert Fleshed body metaphor. )
Without which the memory entity become hollow, cold and aloof. In this sense, disregarding memory glimmers actually propels the ongoing crisis of memory.
Derived from the analysis, the problem that confronts the preservation of urban memory is now revealed to be “how to preserve urban memory intactly, without the macro narrative overriding memory glimmers? ”
The state machines manipulate the macro narrative on a rightful position; Acknowledging the complementary relationship, then it is up to individuals or non-state-run organizations to tune up the volume of popular memory. Art, a powerful medium of conversation and recording, shares a hidden similarity with memory glimmers: Art, as a form of expression, is inherently liberal, and thus possesses the possibility of staying free from the distortion of the mass. In which case, art is the perfect medium for remembrance.
In fact, cases of adopting art as a method of urban memory preservation have been found. All metropolitans around the world, face the common issue of amnesia. In Toronto, a house of an unknown reclusive artist filled with artworks documenting details of civil participation in urban memory was discovered; the house was later assessed to be an archival installation challenging “the official archive and urban regimes of power” and then presented to the public. (lacking level one details) )(insert example on organizational level)
Inspired by the artistic approach, I propose the construction of popular memory archiving centers, individual archive of an enlarged scale: art districts designed for concerned artists to create art in the specific purpose of preserving the city’s memory. The art district should be composed by two main sections: studios for art creation and museums or archives open to the public. With enough publicity, the place could function as an always-existing window for the willing citizens to share and preserve their stories.
My proposal has the physical premise for actual practice in my city. Chongqing has become a major manufacturing and transportation center since it served as the wartime capital of ROC during the second Sino-Japanese war. As more and more coastal cities fell under the control of the Japanese army, huge manufacturing plants originally situated in those places mass-migrated upstream, many among which finally settled in Chongqing. However, in answer to the nation’s policy of shifting labor-intensive industry to service economy (“退二进三”) in the 90s, most of the manufacturing plants retreated from the city entering the 21st century, leaving behind mass acres of factories and residential areas awaiting governmental regulation for reconstruction. Many of the old sites were demolished and constructed into new residential communities or new city centers, only a few remain. In recent years, more and more urban citizens call for the preservation of old architectures, old factories, and old communities, etc. accompanied by a rise in governmental attention. If the old sites were destined to be reconstructed, then why not rebuild them for the purpose of memory preservation.
My expectation of the ideal art districts is hard to reach. The idea of reconstructing old sites of factories into art districts wasn’t new, instead, there are multiple already-existing installations of such situating in different cities of China, but none was ever constructed with the specific purpose of urban memory preservation. The expectation was to preserve the amorphous spirit and culture of the city through preserving the old architectures. However, every one of them turned out to be tourist attractions selling nice commodities under the name of “spirit of the city”, or studio entities profiting themselves. These reconstructed old sites have officially become what architectural theorist Aldo Rossi actively advocates against — “historical relics, while their exterior being perfectly preserved, completely gutted and filled with new fittings that consequently sever them from their historical meaning”. To avoid such problems, the nature of the future art districts should be established clear — a new form of archives achieving the function of remembrance through the practice of art production.
With the idea in mind, I have already made an effort. Art comes in varied disciplines, regarding the specific function of memory preservation, I found documentary as the most fitted media. I spent over 13 months, from March 2018 to June 2019, searching for stories taking place on W land, interviewing the urban farmers, learning about the history of my city, shooting a documentary featuring the forgotten corners of Chongqing. As a high school student, my power was limited, however, I still managed to present my research results to the public through the form of exhibition. The event attracted local newspapers, renowned writers, and representatives of local historical relic preservation organizations. I told the stories of the urban farmers to the participants, and they then spread the stories to a broader audience; The soon-to-perish stories of the urban farmers were clearly heard. Even without the physically constructed art districts or studios, the operation starts now.
In order to make my proposal feasible, I propose other media producers like myself to really hear out the stories that the willing urban dwellers would tell, to tell their stories with our powers, in their voice, and to take on our social responsibility of preserving the delicate individual memory glimmers, of preserving the authentic memory of our city, when large institutional national machines couldn’t be able to. Even with the faintest sound, I would like to call out, individual memory glimmers and the macro narrative have roles equally important in the preservation of urban memory.
the reference list is yet to be organized
