Ruins & Relics

GONE WITH THE WIND

Theme

ruins & relics
Along the southern coast, the site offers some ruins of the former quarry. Resulting from an artisan quarry activity, these ruins testify the industrial activity of the village after the World War II. Due to economic changes in the late 60’s the quarry in Lei Yue Mun had to close. The remaining installations were the pier extending from the shore to the middle of the sea, with a stone loading ramp to facilitate the dumping of quarry on the barge.

Conceptually, these installations are the memory of the village. Due to the lack of maintenance these facilities are slowly collapsing and looking like a random group of structures along the sea. Because it was an artisan activity, the scale of the quarry is totally appreciable and the story easily imaginable. Part of the village history is kept in these stone walls. Treating them as a collective memory could lead to several actions: restoration, touristic attraction or historical media coverage.

Artistically, it is the role that ruins play in the collective memory that is worth investigating. Do we want to re-shape the former volumes occupied by this installation similarly as Rachel Whiteread does with a typical British house? Or do we want to accentuate its presence on the site? Also, if focusing on the evolution of the progressive vanishing of the structures, would it emphasize on the lack, consciously or not, of care for the local industrial history?

Concept

Gone with the wind
Engaged in the busy modern life, have you paid attention to how nature works? Have you thought about the roots of your life? Have you ever thought about what is going to happen as time slowly goes by?

This is the message ruins and relics deliver to us. Being exposed to natural forces, abandoned constructions, despite their fragmentation, reach a state of harmony with their environment.

The broken pier symbolizes abandon whereas the leaves are used to represent life, linking the ruins to a natural cycle. This life never vanishes, it remains hidden and unnoticed to blossom quietly. This piece aims to reveals the natural regeneration of relics.

Process

Fallen leaves in diverse colours of avocado, amber, caramel, coffee brown were gathered, sorted, and soaked in rainwater. Stacked up to a certain thickness, the moist leaves were placed evenly, according to a gradual change in colour intensity, on a broken pier near the former quarry. Thanks to a certain degree of evaporation and the potent power of nature -winds and rains, we bore witness to the melancholic scenes of the leaves being stirred and blown away by sea breeze as though they were peeled from the ruins.