Funded by the University for the Creative Arts, the aim of this Planting and Placemaking project (PPP) is to mobilise collective knowledge on railway gardens, in order to form a knowledge co-production network that brings together local community groups, gardeners, researchers, artists and cultural organisations along the Liverpool-Manchester railway. We want to examine the notion of ‘plurality’ in the formation of railway gardens, and how they have become a vital community space through the process of placemaking. 

See more details in the booklet.

‘If we did not know before that we share the surfaces of the world, we do now. The surface that one person touches bears the trace of that person, hosts and transfers that trace, and affects the next person whose touch lands there. The surfaces differ. Plastic won’t bear the trace for long, but some porous materials clearly do. Something human and viral lingers briefly or longer on a surface that constitutes one material component of our common world.’

- Judith Butler

Fran and I delivered this exhibition of my mother’s paintings in Nigüelas. My mother self-learnt two different techniques of traditional Chinese paintings after her retirement, and what I found beautiful is the space/aura created in her works. As a former Chinese literature teacher, her interpretation of literati paintings seemed to be seamless. 

How do you make a community space/hub more public and is the notion of 'publicness' shifting in a post-pandemic era?  This residency with Metal UK aims to investigate the historical changes of the Edge Hill Station, Liverpool, from one of the oldest passenger railway station to the contemporary centre for communities and artists. The project discusses the changing notion of ‘publicness’ in the aspects of both public transportation (the class system) and urban space (exclusion and privatisation), to reveal a hidden model of top-down (urban) management that has been constantly challenged by local groups/communities in Liverpool.


The residency is followed by a public conversation with guests including Liverpool Art Prize (2012) winner Robyn Woolston, Mark Sidebotham from Shed KM architects, studio artist and volunteer for the regular screening night Film Station Adrian Jeans, and one half of Cinema Nation Monika Rodriguez: ‘A Shifting Model of Publicness’.

See more details at Metal UK.

Cities are shaped by people. From self-built settlements on the rooftops of Hong Kong to feminist graffiti and flags under bridges, people negotiate with the city produce safe, small territories that belong to specific groups.

It is this process of negotiation between individuals and authorities (both public and commercial) that shapes the everyday urban spaces that we choose to spend time in. Often, these places are made through the reaction and resistance of ordinary people. In this way, power is shifted from the ‘ruler’ to the people, and communities form and become stronger.

Tate: ‘Knowledge is Power’; UoL: ‘Tate Residency’

This paper explores the cinematic representation of the socio-spatial (re)production of publicness in contemporary Hong Kong, through analysing series of Hong Kong city films. I argue that Hong Kong urban cinema has demonstrated a cinematic urban topography of the city and the fluid urban space engendered by everyday practices.

Conference: ‘Slices of Everyday Lives’

‘OUTPUT OPEN is an exhibition that brings together artists and designers all from or based in Merseyside. There isn’t a single neat theme that runs through the show - we have simply enjoyed the practices of these makers and want to showcase the great amount of creative activity that is happening locally. This year’s edition includes work by Claire Holtaway, Nneka Cummins, John Elcock, Zhuozhang Li, Paul Mellor, Gold Akanbi, Grace Edwards, Sumuyya Khader, Josie Jenkins and Sophie Green. We hope you enjoy the show.’ (Review: ‘Output Open 2: Let Quality Speak’)

This paper explores the socio-spatial transformation of urban spaces in Hong Kong through analysing a series of contemporary Hong Kong films, and how these films demonstrate a cinematic urban geography and depict the ever-changing transformation of everyday life spaces. I argue that these socio-spatial (re)production of urban spaces reflect and affect the ‘floating’ identity of the people and the city in terms of different aspects, such as physical forms, social structures and psychological comprehensions of the space.

we fool ourselves that women came from men’s bone, though we were all born from females’ bodies
we simplify the women and the nature, then, we see them as materials for production

This workshop aims to understand the city image of Liverpool from different groups of people (mainly young people). It consists of two parts: the ‘Image of Liverpool’ and the ‘Future of Liverpool’. With asking people to create two collages based upon images/texts from newspapers and magazines, it shows people’s underneath understandings of the city in different layers (physical urban spaces, social everyday life, etc.) and their future scenarios.

‘The summer is rapidly drawing to a close. The latest round of fighting has ended. More than twenty-one hundred Palestinians and seventy-two Israelis are dead, whole Gazan neighbourhoods lie in rubble, thousands are homeless there, and in Israel the events of the summer have been hastily buried. Life in Jewish Jerusalem has slipped unnervingly back to humdrum routine. In Zion Square, the protesters have vanished and been replaced by gaggles of noisy American Jewish teenagers. Next to the bright yellow bloodmobile with a Magen David painted on its side, a yarmulke- wearing electric guitarist plays “Stairway to Heaven” off-key at all hours of the day. This scene unfolds right across from the row of pinkish Jaffa Road buildings that it seems Spyro Houris built, just outside the window of the office where he once sat and worked—but he remains a ghost.’ (p287)

“这个夏天很快地接近了尾声。最近的一轮殴斗也已结束，超过2100名巴勒斯坦人和72名以色列人死亡，整个加沙社区遍地碎石瓦砾，数千人无家可归。而在以色列，这一夏季的事变已被迅速地忘却，犹太人身心俱疲地在耶路撒冷恢复了平乏的日常生活。锡安广场的示威者们消失散去，取而代之的是成群聒噪的美国犹太青少年。在一辆一侧涂有大卫星的明黄色采血巡回车旁，身戴犹太圆顶小帽的电吉他手一整日都在走调地演奏着《通往天堂的阶梯（Stairway to Heaven）》。这一幕展现在雅法路上那排似乎是斯派罗·扈利斯建造的粉色建筑群前，在他曾坐着并工作的那个办公室的那扇窗外——而他却已成为了一个幽灵。”

Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City (Chinese Edition)’, Beijing United Publishing co., LTD; 1st edition (December 1, 2017)

Did human firstly create the form of a runway platform, or the semi-circle form of ancient Greek Theatre?

This project of Somers Town is based on research works in Studio Global Praxis, Sheffield School of Architecture. This community, which is sandwiched between St Pancras International and Euston Stations in London, suffers a fragmented social and spatial condition against its diverse cultural and social backgrounds.