The word belong — from be (“around, thoroughly”) + longen (“to reach, to yearn”) — meant to go along with. It presupposes relation to a collective larger than oneself. Belonging has a dual meaning: as object, a person’s movable possession; and as emotion, an affinity with a place or community. Yet not every possession always become a belonging tied to a collective subject. Smartphones, for example, embody contradictions: tethering us to global networks rather than place, yet also serving as tools of solidarity — from Tahrir Square to Hong Kong — where individual devices were crucial in organise protests.
This workshop invites participants to find a moment, or Form-Ritual, where personal objects resonate between place and collective subject. The storyboard is our method: five A4 papers that sequence how forms and rituals construct a sense of belonging. Participants will draw from small items to the vast territory — umbrella, garments, fi re, bench, inherited furniture, pole, car, nomad house, trees, staircase, detached house, archive, skyscraper, plaza, street, forest, map, game manual, and poem — to anchor belonging in the here and now.
The format of putting all ‘episodes’ side by side creates an atlas of 22 objects with the related collective subjects. This format opens itself to interdisciplinary contributions: an architect’s line drawing, an artist’s painting, a fashion designer’s collage, a product designer’s render, a heritage scholar’s archival trace.
The task is simple:
Take one object.
Find or create the collective ritual related to the object.
Make them into a narrative.
Our aim is not to propose utopian worlds, but to work critically with the world as it is — revealing latent conditions, questioning frameworks, and rediscovering the emancipatory potential of our professions and discourses. We would like to use the storyboard both analytical and performative: a tool for constructing, sequencing, and sharing spatial imaginaries that oscillate between representation and reality, between what we long for and what we belong to.
The word belong — from be (“around, thoroughly”) + longen (“to reach, to yearn”) — meant to go along with. It presupposes relation to a collective larger than oneself. Belonging has a dual meaning: as object, a person’s movable possession; and as emotion, an affinity with a place or community. Yet not every possession always become a belonging tied to a collective subject. Smartphones, for example, embody contradictions: tethering us to global networks rather than place, yet also serving as tools of solidarity — from Tahrir Square to Hong Kong — where individual devices were crucial in organise protests.
This workshop invites participants to find a moment, or Form-Ritual, where personal objects resonate between place and collective subject. The storyboard is our method: five A4 papers that sequence how forms and rituals construct a sense of belonging. Participants will draw from small items to the vast territory — umbrella, garments, fi re, bench, inherited furniture, pole, car, nomad house, trees, staircase, detached house, archive, skyscraper, plaza, street, forest, map, game manual, and poem — to anchor belonging in the here and now.
The format of putting all ‘episodes’ side by side creates an atlas of 22 objects with the related collective subjects. This format opens itself to interdisciplinary contributions: an architect’s line drawing, an artist’s painting, a fashion designer’s collage, a product designer’s render, a heritage scholar’s archival trace.
The task is simple:
Take one object.
Find or create the collective ritual related to the object.
Make them into a narrative.
Our aim is not to propose utopian worlds, but to work critically with the world as it is — revealing latent conditions, questioning frameworks, and rediscovering the emancipatory potential of our professions and discourses. We would like to use the storyboard both analytical and performative: a tool for constructing, sequencing, and sharing spatial imaginaries that oscillate between representation and reality, between what we long for and what we belong to.