A Journey Round
My Room
The Berlage Theory Master Class
led by Bêka & Lemoine
April 12–23, 2021
Each spring the Berlage organizes a two-week theory master class led by a renowned architectural thinker. This year’s iteration, led by Bêka & Lemoine in collaboration with Lucas Bacle, explored the unprecedented proximity and familiarity we have with our daily domestic environments in the wake of the past year’s successive lockdowns. Revisiting Xavier de Maistre’s eccentric 1794 novel A Journey Round My Room, one of the first literary works about confinement, participants were encouraged to explore and reconquest astonishment and surprise in the way we look at our immediate surroundings. They investigated film as way to bring to experience, understanding, and narration of domestic space that other kinds of representational media—such as plans, sections, elevations, or photographs—cannot. The master class concluded with a film festival featuring ten five-minutes films, each manifesting a highly personal, sharp, and critical interpretation of each participant’s relationship to domestic space.
Contributions by
Juan Benavides
Salomon Frausto
Ludo Groen
www.theberlage.nl
@theberlage
(In)Habit
Ryan Ridge Rahardja (ID)Through his preparation prior a date, we discover the way in which Ryan’s daily routines shape his domestic space.
Cast: Ryan Ridge and Jacklyn Mickey
Length: 3:06 min
Cast: Ryan Ridge and Jacklyn Mickey
Length: 3:06 min
Wrapping a Room
Ana Herreros Cantis (ES)Ana lives surrounded by her landlord's objects. As time passes by, she learns to coexist in this unfamiliar domestic space.
Length: 3:04 min
Length: 3:04 min
The Case of Masha & Vania
Maria Finagina (RU)A strange scientific experiment on body and space takes place in a bedroom.
Cast: Maria Finagina and Ivan Potapenko
Voice over: Michael Tjia
Length: 4:56 min
Cast: Maria Finagina and Ivan Potapenko
Voice over: Michael Tjia
Length: 4:56 min
Outside In
Maria Christopoulou (GR)When she moved to the Netherlands, Maria was surprised by the invasion of privacy through her windows.
Length: 4:56 min
Length: 4:56 min
Back in Space
Nishi Shah (IN)Nishi embarks on a quest to find the one monument that embodies her current soujorn, another place to add to her postcard collection.
Length: 4:03 min
Length: 4:03 min
A five-minute intermission: The Story of the Boiled Egg
Misaligned
Jacklyn Mickey (US)Jacklyn has a pathological eye condition. For the first time, she will let them move to where they want to see, even if it means to be separated from each other.
Cast: Jacklyn Mickey, Nishi Shah, and Heng Yu
Length: 3:51 min
Cast: Jacklyn Mickey, Nishi Shah, and Heng Yu
Length: 3:51 min
Living in a Sandcastle
Heng Yu (TW)As if his current room was a spatial palimpsest of his life, Heng’s objects and fragments recall the previous rooms he has lived in.
Length: 4:42 min
Length: 4:42 min
I Live with Michael
Michael Tjia (NL)What would Michael's objects say about his way of living and occupying space?
Length: 4:20 min
Length: 4:20 min
Beyond the Walls
Georgia Katsi (GR)Georgia lives in an attic. By listening carefully to the surrounding sounds, she wonders about what lies beyond her walls.
Length: 4:10 min
Length: 4:10 min
Choir Lessons
Jin Young (US)This is the moment of catharsis when Jin decides to leave his apartment, housed inside an incredible—yet peculiar—location.
Cast: Jin Young Chang, Rory Hooper, Heng Yu, Ege Sener, Georgios Kleisiaris, Steven LinKrishna, Ajithkumar Pilai, Sofie-Amalia Diderikson, Pedro Vasquez, Ryan Ridge Rahardja, Nishi Shah, Maria Finagina, Jacklyn Mickey, Georgia Katsi-Stamatoukou, Juan Benavides, Lucas Bacle
Length: 3:06 min
Cast: Jin Young Chang, Rory Hooper, Heng Yu, Ege Sener, Georgios Kleisiaris, Steven LinKrishna, Ajithkumar Pilai, Sofie-Amalia Diderikson, Pedro Vasquez, Ryan Ridge Rahardja, Nishi Shah, Maria Finagina, Jacklyn Mickey, Georgia Katsi-Stamatoukou, Juan Benavides, Lucas Bacle
Length: 3:06 min
A Journey Round
My Room
The Berlage Theory Master Class
led by Bêka & Lemoine
in collaboration with Lucas BacleApril 12–23, 2021
Each spring the Berlage organizes a two-week theory master class led by a renowned architectural thinker. This year’s iteration, led by Bêka & Lemoine in collaboration with Lucas Bacle, explored the unprecedented proximity and familiarity we have with our daily domestic environments in the wake of the past year’s successive lockdowns. Revisiting Xavier de Maistre’s eccentric 1794 novel A Journey Round My Room, one of the first literary works about confinement, participants were encouraged to explore and reconquest astonishment and surprise in the way we look at our immediate surroundings. They investigated film as way to bring to experience, understanding, and narration of domestic space that other kinds of representational media—such as plans, sections, elevations, or photographs—cannot. The master class concluded with a film festival featuring ten five-minutes films, each manifesting a highly personal, sharp, and critical interpretation of each participant’s relationship to domestic space.
1. Ursula K Le Guin
UKG / 1974
From The Author of the Acacia Seeds
and Other Extracts
And with them, or after them, may there not come that even bolder adventurer — the first geolinguist, who, ignoring the delicate, transient lyrics of the lichen, will read beneath it the still less communicative, still more passive, wholly atemporal, cold, volcanic poetry of the rocks: each one a word spoken, how long ago, by the earth itself, in the immense solitude, the immenser community, of space.
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