Bajia House 2: Social Spaces
Bajia House 2: Social Spaces
Beijing’s social spaces — sites for gathering, dancing, playing, socializing, discussing, exchanging, dreaming, loving, hypothesizing both alone and with others — are slowly being eradicated. In their place State-led visions of a refined, cosmopolitan future are constructed.
This second issue of 八家 Bajia considers the disappearance of Social Spaces throughout urban China, and particularly the socially engaged artist, architects and entrepreneurs that are challenging this socio-urban erasure. Within this printed space, twenty-four contributors survey, highlight, document and abstract various approaches to (re)building, creating, subverting, and maintaining the social and various interpersonal relationships that comprise it. Through eighteen months of research and collaboration, this issue of 八家 Bajia presents conversations guided by the political, economic, and social complexities inherent to the region, and not those of a Western legacy. (Bactagon Projects)