When I was designing exhibitions before, I often unconsciously fell into a strange cycle. I wanted to create a viewing experience for a groundbreaking and unexpected new work, prompting people to look left, right, up, down, horizontally, vertically, and to view the work in different scales and mediums.
However, the preparation time for an exhibition design usually does not exceed a few months. Being immersed in ingenious inventions for too long often made the outcome appear crude and rough. Exhibits are the result of the author's lifelong dedication and countless hours of refining and polishing. I wonder if I should return to my core profession, architecture, which also requires a significant amount of time and dedication, to contemplate and create.
"Architecture" serves as a vessel, providing a space, a domain. The essence of the author/work may be magnified within this space, allowing us to get closer to the work in a more intense emotional state. Alternatively, it may evoke resistance, enabling us to perceive the essence of things through contradictions and tensions. In exhibition design, space can cleverly transform into an abstract exhibit. The abstraction lies in encapsulating the shared temperament of the creator (which is also one of the attributes of architectural space).
So, what kind of sensation should the space of the White Night Flowing Banquet evoke?
I attempted to express a space reminiscent of the White Night and Zhai Yongming（the owner and a famous Chinse female poet）. Yet, this endeavor plunged me into prolonged and unresolved agony. Confirming the similarity of each step in the design process felt like answering a multiple-choice question with no clear right or wrong answer, cautious yet lacking any judgment criteria. Should I use stone or wood? Deep-toned walnut wood or bright marine plywood? These vague speculations only led to confusion and indecision.
There's a photo I adore of the "bad boy" Rogers and Piano laughing innocently at the Pompidou. Two young men in their thirties triumphed over nearly 700 entries with their controversial and daring designs. Rogers said, "At the beginning, I didn't realize how unexpected our actions were. Only when looking back did I realize how brave we were in our youth."
I seemed to have found an anchor. The common traits I admire and aspire to in Rogers, Piano, Zhai Yongming, and the White Night: talent, avant-garde spirit, boldness, spontaneity, courage, charm, yet prone to messing up after a night of drinking, perpetually curious and youthful.
The Pompidou contemplates how people gather and communicate, irrespective of age, gender, wealth; it's a true cultural haven. The bars along the street where White Night is located stretch out in a long row, becoming increasingly crowded, until eventually, it's impossible to tell who is friends with whom.
The space is divided into two parts, with two parallel entrances. One part is the documentary of the White Night, spanning 25 years, with screens inside and outside reflecting off mirrors, blurring the boundaries of time and space. The other part is a 2.5-meter-high, 5.8-meter-wide square space, with exposed light steel joists, magnesium boards, structures, components, elevated platforms, jacks for the elevated platform, milky white and purple double-sided awnings, and the gray space under the awnings.
The elevated platform is meant for visitors to rest during the exhibition, which coincidentally echoes the original White Night storefront. I wanted to experiment with the mysterious and seductive purple, only to hear that Zhai once considered painting the entire White Night in purple.
In the film " I Fell in Love Like a Flower Bouquet ", the two protagonists, deeply immersed in literature and art, encounter two new youngsters when they break up, exchanging books just like they used to. "Coffee, bars, salons, bookstores, gathering places for literati, cultural exchange centers"—it's like a banquet, or a production line, where young people from different eras express the same essence in different ways. It's a flowing banquet for groups of three or five friends, and also a flowing banquet across time and space.
"Some leave, but new ones will join."
"Welcome to join and leave us."
On May 8, 2020, YiJie moved to an alley in the Yulin East Road community; 21 years ago, on May 8, White Night opened on Yulin Road.
