The original idea of creating a display apparatus made of yarn to investigate the conditions of production and the cultural significance of yarn in Mexico was seen by the reviewers as merely reproducing the nostalgia embedded within museological display systems that fetishize the objects of their contents. My intention, however, was to create a model for a radical negotiation of contexts relating textile production and its cultural significance to notions of hybridity. The function of the collage was not to reproduce the museological form of representation, but to fragment it and critique it.  The aim was to create an intertextual rendering of the different manifestations, associations, and uses of yarn to bring out and address the contradictions embedded within it. The yarn was intended to function as a materiel and a medium through which to explores these issues, both as content and as structure.

Although the reviewers’ comments did address gaps in my conceptualization of the model, it made me realize that I had lost myself in the various ideas I was trying to connect. This disjuncture made it difficult for me to feel invested in the project.

Upon further reflection, my trajectory has changed to draw instead from my biographic relationship to La Glorieta de la Amistad—the image of the three cones of yarn that constitute the context I am addressing.  I propose a different model to explore how the role this structure plays as a monument to the textile industry (and by extension, as a monument to capitalism) has reconfigured the cultural dynamic of Moroleon, Guanajuato, the town in Mexico were I grew up. I have only fragmented memories of it since they erected it in the late 1990s when I was already living in the United States. To me the absurdity and the contradictions of this structure are quite clear, but from my experiences in my goings back, I know that my family and other locals feel a sense of pride toward it and see it in a self-important way—it is a symbol of success and as something to aspire to.

I now propose to make a model of La Glorieta and insert it in the gallery space to bring into focus its various contradictions of meaning and symbolism that it has accumulated since its creation. Though the model itself presents the cones as context-specific in the popular imagination, I hope it can also address more generally, the relationships we have to public spaces and collective memory. By using this biographic example as a model I hope to ground the abstract networks of information that structure and organize site-specific social practices and rituals.  It is intended to create a contact zone between viewers and the context of Moroleon, to begin a process of re-inscription and transcultural inquiry.

The mosque typologies as they exists today have failed to properly address the unique contextual challenges and opportunities of the American context. The mosques of America have largely neglected the communities in which they have been inserted into, but instead have trended to alienate themselves and its patrons. The predominant American (non-Muslim) perception of mosques are dark, distant, unapproachable and impermeable structures. While most Americans would view that mosques threaten and disrupt American social order, this thesis will attempt to demonstrate how a mosque which has been sensitively designed for its context will help reinforce and strengthen American social order and the notion of community.

Additionally, the thesis will critique the external as well as internal workings of existing American mosque models. There exists major internal shortcomings mosques in the way they have addressed the needs of its patrons, with a failure to establish a mosque model that is well suited for growth. An exploration will be made that focuses on developing new prototypes that deal specifically with mosque design in varying scenarios within the American context by amplifying its presence, rather than attempting to obscure/conceal/camouflage it. More specifically, the city of Boston has been selected as a testing ground in order demonstrate the prototypes potentiality of retrofitting into the notion of an American city. Spanning from the human to the urban scale, a series of projects will attempt to address issues of interface and retrofit into an American framework. A new public visibility is crucial as Islam continues to grow, dispelling social stigma and bridging strong interfaith communities. 

At the human scale, the prototypes will try to troubleshoot common shortcomings of the uniquely american ‘retrofit’ typology (adapted mosque spaces from previous retail/commercial/residential space) such as disorganization, clutter and the resulting diminishment of the mosque experience. The thesis makes a claim that these shortcomings, though they are seemingly trivial, have a tremendous impact on the essence and spiritual quality of the prayer.

At the urban scale, the project will explore a new juxtaposition of the Islamic prayer and a vibrant urban plaza. The hope is to demonstrate a new potential for the prayer to interface with its urban context, putting the inner-workings of the mosque on display, Using the previous two projects as a method for testing ideas and collecting data, the project at the building scale will be an attempt to consolidate both the inner and outer workings of a properly functioning ‘American’ mosque. The main goal of the building scale is to find an architectural expression which is ‘ Islamic’ but also uniquely american, giving the Islamic community in Boston a unique self-identity which is harmonious and compatible with the communities around it.

I’m interested in studying the public monuments in Korea during the Park Jung Hee’s regime. These years are the core era of post-war Korean history during which modernization and economy development were achieved. At that time‚ “Koreanized Modern Art” was established based on the concept of “art for art’s sake” in the art sphere‚ and public monuments were erected in public spaces‚ including in the main streets of cities‚ in parks‚ and in historic sites. The public monuments from this era include statues‚ war memorials‚ and monuments for historic events. I would like to approach to ‘Model” by researching and analyzing the art-socialistic approach of post-war Korea.

Lee Sung Man President statue is built in 1956, at Nam San Mountain in Seoul. It shows the overwhelming size of the statue.

In early 1960, the monuments for democracy were built to memorize democratic revolution victims and for the victory of civil rights. These monuments commemorate the astonishing fact that the Koreans had been freed from the annexations era of Japan in 1945‚ not long after accepting the democratic system in 1948 and confronting the dictatorship of Lee Sung Nam’s regime. Actually‚ the Republic of Korea is exceptional case among other underdevelopment nations‚ such as those in Asia and South America. As a result of the civil rights revolution‚ President Lee’s statues were destroyed and were replaced with images of a young man at the Korea University and Seoul National University‚ which symbolized the power of students and learning.

Among of them‚ “Monument for the Young Man‚ Victims of the April 19th Revolution” was erected at Suyuri (the northern region of Seoul) through collaboration between students‚ civilians‚ and the new government. This monument was more than simply being the first national monument because this project marked the first instance of a huge public monument that created an allegory for a specific point in history.

“Monument for the Young Man‚ Victims of the April 19th Revolution”

The meaning of “public” has changed according to historic and social changes‚ which is why the interpretation of public monuments‚ diversity and adaptation is important.

The image above is from Moroleon, Guanajuato a city in Mexico where I grew up. The three cones of yarn appear to serve as a kind of monument to the textile industry that modernized this once small village into a powerful producer of textiles. Moroleon is now unequivocally associated with textile industrial production.  In other contexts, yarn still has strong cultural and gendered associations with traditional craft and weaving production, which have been affected by encroaching capitalist markets.

Yarn and other fibrous material have been a part of Mexico’s history for thousands of years in indigenous communities (archaeologists have found pieces of cotton and cloth that proved to be at least 7,000 years old). Its importance to the huichol indigenous communities is still evident in their peyote-inspired yarn painting, which embody their spiritual cosmology.

I am interested in working with yarn as a modeling material and medium through which to explore its associations and uses in Mexican culture, and make visible its significance at the intersection of cultural, political, and economic networks. Furthermore, I hope to engage notions of identity and authenticity within the context of capitalist and industrial production. I propose to create a model that will allow visitors to engage with the material and produce a dialogical space wherein multiple contexts are addressed and negotiated. In relation to the exhibition space, I am interested to see what correspondences, resonances, or tensions are produced and provide an array of conceptions and roles of modeling and modeling practices.

Home has a long history reference to be the cultural symbol for comfort. The typical scenario to convey this symbol is the image of a domestic context with a family sitting in of a open fire in a severe winter night. While in the image, the open fire plays an important role to convey the notion of comfort psychologically and thermally. However, both of these comfort notions are invisible visually, but they are metaphysically presence to legitimize the homy domestic living.

Therefore, “Modeling Invisible Comfort (MIC)” is a project emerged from the pragmatism of fulfilling the requirement of my MIT MArch thesis – “Home Sweet Home: Domestic Comfort Formalism,” in which the relation of architectural design and human physiological response to thermal comfort is inquired in order to develop a new formal language for the domestic design. And MIC is a multi-disciplinary project to engages human physiology, architecture, building and environment science to unpick their interrelation of human thermal comfort in domestic domain.

And MIC will consist of two stages, and different modeling subjects are going to be modeled. (Refer to following sketch)

1st. Climate Chamber

In order to model the comfort, it is important to understand the environmental condition contributed to human comfort. Thus Climate Chambers is a testing apparatus to modeling the basic environmental scenario of sun, wind, temperature and humidity, which all have impact on human comfort. Meanwhile the Climate chamber will serve as a testing machine for architectural models in order to test out the comfort standard in the models.

(top left: Climate chamber for experiment; top right, middle left: Comfort experiment with human subjects; middle right: Wind tunnel; bottom left and right: Thermal load test of clothing.)

2nd. Comfort Response

Different from human body, architectural model is lack of sensory system to receive external signals regarding comfort conditions, for example: temperature and humidity in order to produce response to recreate response for comfort. Thus, the second part will be to model the thermal comfort sense for architectural models by the aid of sensors and visualization technology.

(top left: Women shivering; top right: Body sensor; bottom left and right: Building stimulation.)