ECHOES AND INTERSECTIONS
A collection of site-writings



BUILDING VOIDS

Somewhere in my view, I find myself looking at these de-constructed landscapes.

Towards these I gaze. I hear them speak to me. Asking what happened?



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Sara Alissa

Desert landscape in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia




OTHER FORMS OF RESTORATION

1. The Ruins
The echoes of time converse in my womb
slowly decaying
Parts of myself stand still...
while other
parts slip back into earth...


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Nojoud Alsudairi

An abode building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia



NAVIGATING THE WHAT-WHAT: STAYING WITH MY TROUBLE

There is an image of 6 white men pointing to a map of a ‘Native Township’. In the image, they can be seen to be discussing the design and layout of an Apartheid Era Black Township...



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Jhono Bennett

Johannesburg, South Africa



IT’S JUST A MATTER OF TIME

I stand on the Hunter’s Path late in the afternoon. It’s late in the afternoon of 14 September 2019; I am in the remains of a hot, bright day, the sunlight is picking out the rise, the bend ahead of me...


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Toby Blackman

Hunter’s Path, Dartmoor,
UK





ANOTHER BORDERLAND

The Isle of Grain
was once called Greon,
which means gravel
in Old English,
A small piece of a particular substance on Earth...


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Chia-Ying Chao

The Isle of Grain, UK + Fermosa, Taiwan




THE DEEP BLUE



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Andrea Chen

Ping An Finance Center, Shenzhen, China



CUTTINGS

It’s mid-MAY, and the party is in full swing; the camera swings and rattles, darting around to capture the unfolding of the day. The air smells of Super-Soaker water and birthday candles, muddled with the sweetness of early summer grass.

It took around three hours to find the cables...


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Charles Dixon

An orchard, Warwickshire, UK



LONDON, LABOUR AND THE FORGOTTEN

I have chosen to dedicate my time to re-engage with the improvised citizens of London’s past...


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Teagan Dorsch

The River Thames estuary, London, UK



FIVE RIVERS AND SEVEN SEAS

First Meeting

Paddington Station, Platform 12

“This is the TFL rail service to... London Heathrow.”

There’s a running joke in the Southall Punjabi community...


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Kanza Leghari

Train journeys between Southall and Central London, UK 




SKYE EDGE 

Grey.

The dark of night lingers into the light of day and the air is heavy with mist. Cloud reaches land; timeless, calm, listless.

Drizzle. I walk along an upwardly inclining path...
 

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Charlotte Morgan

Skye Edge, Sheffield,
UK



SHUTTERS: 11 PERIPHERAL SCENES AT THE BACK SIDE OF THE NATIONAL THEATRE


A marshland theatre built on the river.
The shivering waters filters interspecies matters into the dramas. There is a
damper, creeper, salter, supper, a peril of flood, tankards of grey disease, earth sub-side and crack...



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Hamish Muir

The National Theatre, London, UK



(MY) PALIMPSEST BODY


The bell tower of the Cathedral reads twelve o’clock in Santiago centre. The chime merges with the whirlwind of fleeting conversations;

nervous whispers; faltering steps; vigilant rifles...

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Francisca Elizabeth Pimentel

Santiago’s
porn cinemas, Chile



IF, I WOULD


I begin here, even though I should have begun there.

فلا تلمني إن نطقت بلسان المستعمر...





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Rasha Saffarini

A house in Tulkarem, Palestine



Please view this website on desktop devices for a full introduction.
 

 

Echoes and Intersections is a collection of site-writings produced as part of the module Critical Spatial Practice: Site-Writing across the MA Architectural History, MA Situated Practice, and MA Historic Urban Environments dgree and PhD programmes at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

The featured works take the reader through fixed spatial locations and buildings, and on temporal journeys across ambiguous lands and waters. Written simultaneously across the globe, our situated writing offers diverse perspectives and narratives on plural geographies, landscapes and cities, through pieces interwoven with multiple, intersecting threads.

Many of the works occupy edgelands, peripheries or crossing points, writing the boundaries of buildings, states or bodies. They explore homelands, homes and selves that have been deconstructed, revealed and returned to. Echoing with memories, histories and absent others, the sites written carry the voices of place and voices displaced or fragmented, which resonate through the materials of the land - mud, sand, sky and rock.

These writings can be read in any order, allowing connections to emerge differently upon each reading.

Curatorial committee: Toby Blackman, Chia-Ying Chao, Kanza Leghari, Charlotte Morgan & Rasha Saffarini. 

With thanks to Polly Gould, Jane Rendell and David Roberts.




Bloomsbury Festival 2021

In October 2021, participants from the class read from their work on Bloomsbury Radio as part of Bloomsbury Festival 2021, alongside Polly Gould, Jane Rendell, David Roberts and participants from the class of 2020.

Find the recordings on Soundcloud here.