Suspended Archive

The installation Suspended Archive is inspired by Jorge Luis Borges's short story Library of Babel, where inhabitants of a library are surrounded by books that all seem to be written in gibberish. Similar to Borges's universe, the Suspended Archive squares seem to be hovering decipherable words, but when looking closely the viewer sees that each square contains multiple layers of newspapers in different languages underneath the colors.

Serving as a metaphor for the modern society of nowadays, the building blocks reflect cultural fusions that inhabit globalized cities. We can coexist in such close proximity to others yet live in an entirely different world, speaking different languages and experiencing life from our different bubbles. The installation highlights a confusion of tongues in a floating city of fragments. As the viewer is invited to walk through the panels and attempt to make sense of the newspaper articles, one is reminded of one of the tragedies of modern society: being surrounded by an overload of information you can't process.

The messages could only theoretically be decoded if people speaking different languages would work together to make sense of them; symbolic of how our society thrives when we're able to collaborate to understand each other, solve problems utilizing each others' unique strengths, and actively striving to coexist peacefully. By embracing perspectives from different backgrounds other than ours, we allow ourselves to grow, evolve, learn & expand together.

The choice of cardboard and newspaper materials reflect what can be commonly found on any city street: cardboard boxes from deliveries to stores or restaurants, newspaper sheets, ripped posters plastered on walls. These materials also reflect a unifying experience, offering common threads no matter the city, country or language. The hanging blocks can also be seen as buildings scattered throughout a city, each holding the many cultures of residents that lie within them.

The title plays with the physical hanging of the artwork as well as the metaphorical idea of the text being suspended midway, cut off into different languages.

This is a small scale model of a larger concept proposal.