Of Fluxes & Flows

2004-2016 Shanghai near Power Station of Art

Flux landscapes – Factories became fairgrounds, fairgrounds turned into parking lots, parking lots changed into offices, and offices and are now transforming into houses. It is not as if the landscape has transformed from one stagnant state to another. The transformations are continuous. The landscapes remain in a constant state of flux. Life and its moralities emerge from and respond to the flux in the landscape. The flux folds into itself, the intensities and stoppages of life. These intensities and stoppages feed new transformations.

The flows – 1933, the Slaughterhouse, reeks of the memory of blood that flowed down its concrete gutters. The concrete folds to guide the flows. As light plays on the folds and the memory of the flowing blood, it casts a space of irreverence. This space is fluid and is able to afford high intensities and stoppages, which flow into one another.

The architecture of the biennale learns from these fluxes and flows.