The project thinks with situated knowledge rooted in precarity. For China’s 285-million floating population, the dissolution of their families is a survival tactic that fundamentally challenges the nuclear family model. What has emerged is an intergenerational, interdependent way of living—that is, a ripple effect of domesticity. In short, “floating,” “dissolving,” and “rippling” are ways in which these families form indeterminate and resilient assemblages at the edge of capitalist apparatus—both within and outside. The knowledge embedded in these practices is largely non-discursive and bodily—in other words, in the form of disposition. The project seeks to devise a transdisciplinary framework—at the intersection of architecture, anthropology, performance, and filmmaking—concerning the articulation of such knowledge and how to make it perceived and felt. This work proposes an experimental, collaborative filmmaking process to work with villagers in Shigushan, Wuhan, and facilitate locals becoming active agents of cocreation.

Jingru (Cyan) Cheng works across architecture, anthropology, and filmmaking. Her practice follows drifting bodies—from rural migrant workers to forms of water—to draw out latent relations across scales, confronting intensified social injustice and ecological crisis. Cyan received Harvard Graduate School of Design’s 2023 Wheelwright Prize and commendations from the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) President’s Awards for Research in 2020 and 2018. Her film has been awarded Best Short Film at the Venice Architecture Film Festival (2023), and her work has been exhibited internationally, as part of Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics at ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany (2020–22), Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2019), Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), among others, and included in the Architectural Association’s permanent collection. Cheng holds a PhD by Design from the Architectural Association (AA), and was the codirector of AA Wuhan Visiting School (2015–17). She currently teaches at the Royal College of Art in London.

Mengfan Wang is an independent theatre director and choreographer, with training in history of art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, and dance studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Cologne. Seeking to explore performative expressions of ordinary people, her dance theatre practice engages middle-aged women and children through a collaborative rework of daily acts and recently focuses on ageing bodies by working with retired ballet dancers. Mengfan is selected as “Dance Hopeful (Hoffnungsträger)” by German dance magazine tanz in its yearbook 2018. Her dance works have been invited to VIE Festival Bologna, Beijing Fringe Festival, Wuzhen Theater Festival, among others. Commissioned by the Centre Pompidou and the West Bund Museum Shanghai, her latest work Narrative Fountain was shown as part of Women in Motion 2023. Wang’s artist residencies span across Shanghai, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Zurich, including working with Theatre HORA supported by the Swiss Arts Council.

Chen Zhan is an architect, anthropologist, and independent filmmaker, trained at the Architectural Association and SOAS University of London respectively. An ARB registered architect, Zhan has worked on various award-winning projects across scales and sectors internationally since 2011, including the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre in Leeds, United Kingdom. Following a self-reflexive turn from a designer’s mind, Zhan dived into anthropology in search of a different way of seeing the world. Since 2019, Zhan has used film as a collaborative medium to expand beyond architecture to conduct long-term research-oriented projects, including a short documentary AHMAD that tells the story of a Lebanese asylum seeker who rebuilds his life through cooking and food-sharing with Londoners, and the fictional visual ethnography series ORCHID, BEE and I that dissects the ecological crisis and the pandemic experience through consumption, dwelling, and companionship. Her film won Best Short Film at the Venice Architecture Film Festival in 2023.