Drifting Bodies: Entangled Stories of Sand, Water, Stone and People

You are cordially invited to attend the lecture by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng & Chen Zhan:

Date: 20th Feb 2025

Time: 18:00 – 20:00

Venue: SDE4 Level 5, Forum

Registration: https://bit.ly/nusdoa_CAC

BOA-SIA CPD Points: 2

SILA CPD Points: 2

Drifting Bodies: Entangled Stories of Sand, Water, Stone and People

The talk will share field encounters in our on-going journey of Tracing Sand in Southeast Asia. It is a pilgrimage of two architects trying to reconnect with the fundamental matter of what is around us: the concrete foundation, the lime mortar on the wall, and the window glass all made of sand that came from rivers or land in one way or another. By extension, architecture comes from the earth in one way or another. We follow sand as a guide to unpack the coming-into-being of iconic sites—their form and materiality, the energy that keeps them running, and how they enter the societal cultural imaginaries. Rather than an investigation of direct causality, Tracing Sand traces entangled relations through fieldwork. To us, understanding these relations, not in the abstract, but through tangible, specific registers and embodied experiences is paramount.

The talk will wrap up with excerpts from our long-term situated project, RIPPLE, RIPPLE, RIPPLING, a transdisciplinary endeavor that tunes into how Chinese rural migrant workers make worlds. Traversing different contexts, the focus remains on the entangled flows of people, life forms, matter and the built environment to unpack the interconnectedness and interdependency of our time.

Jingru (Cyan) Cheng works across architecture, anthropology, and filmmaking. Cyan was awarded the Harvard GSD’s 2023 Wheelwright Prize for TRACING SAND and received two commendations from the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) President’s Awards for Research in 2020 and 2018. Cyan holds a PhD by Design from the Architectural Association and currently teaches at the Royal College of Art in London.

Chen Zhan is an architect, anthropologist, and independent filmmaker, trained at the Architectural Association and SOAS University of London. As a UK-registered architect, Chen has worked at Heatherwick Studio on high-profile projects since 2011, including the Changi Airport Terminal 5 in Singapore, Google Gradient Canopy in California and the Bund Finance Centre in Shanghai.

Cyan and Chen’s recent joint sole exhibitions include HOW MUCH WATTAGE IS ONE HANDBREADTH OF WATER at Storefront for Art and Architecture (New York, 2025) and RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING at the Architectural Association (London, 2024). Their film work received the Architecture Short Film Award at the Milano Design Film Festival (2024) and the Best Short Film at the Venice Architecture Film Festival (2023) among others. Together they are Canadian Centre for Architecture’s 2024–2025 CCA-Mellon Multidisciplinary Researchers on field research as a land-dependent practice.