lick our wounds lick my crack

The saying licking your wounds means to restore after a humiliating defeat. I think our current binary ways of thinking are quite humiliating and will also cause our own defeat: climate crisis. Instead of demolishing and gentrifying everything that decays , I think we should heal with decay and learn to live with it.

A tool for inhabiting urban decay differently

My project delves into the ways in which our hegemonic ways of thinking are embedded and reinforced in urban space. I am especially intrigued by the binary thought patterns that persist such as patriarchal and anthropocentric thinking, in which women are subordinated to men and nature to humans.

My work critically examines this dichotomous thinking and opts for an interconnected and relational understanding of the world. To accomplish this, I draw upon feminist, queer, post-human, and new materialist theories, applying them to my experiences in the city of Rotterdam. My goal is to uncover the complex interconnections within urban spaces by focusing on urban decay.

I associate urban decay with the marginalised voices of “the other” — non-human entities, minorities, and nature — which are constantly concealed, suppressed, and rectified. Instead of violently suppressing and controlling decay I propose an absurdist tool for acting-with decay; as decay is a fundamental aspect of relational and entangled life. I express this act of care through licking the wounds of the city. The idiom “licking one’s wounds” signifies healing and recovering after a humiliating defeat. I believe that acknowledging and accepting our fallacies and mistakes in our essentialist thinking and living with the consequences is crucial.

Moreover, the act of licking is messy, moist, and embodied, the licking is both animalistic and sensual. By incorporating these generally avoided elements into spatial practice, I critique the prevailing architectural norms of Rotterdam that prioritise capital, efficiency and rationality alone.

 

I belief that there is an absence of disorder and a lack of chaos in Rotterdam. The city is so meticulously structured and regulated, leaving no room for abandoned or uncontrolled spaces. Therefore, I feel like there is increasingly less room for anything experimental or eccentric.