Yulu Hou
Untitled
Prompt: Visit on-line and research memorials and sites the world, then design and propose two memorials of your own. After deciding on the strongest of the two proposals, we make a final proposal and make a version/model/prototype for exhibition. This must include/be integral to the site.
War is part of human nature. I’ve been thinking about building a memorial for the whole human civilization. People fight and kill for their own reasons. It is throughout human history. It is social, with groups organized to kill people from other groups, whether there is a conflict of interest. When I was doing my meditation, I brought myself into a very negative context which is full of the killing of violence, and then an image of a human skull appeared in my mind. The skull was built of thousands of dead bodies. My idea about site choice can be a little crazy. If it is possible, I want it to be continually floating and moving in the sky. Like war, people don’t know when it will come, but the impact it has on the people is profound.
Human skulls are the most straightforward way for people to sense the somberness and the brutality of the violence that have been done throughout the progress of civilization. I decided to use small white unpainted architectural 1:100 scale model figures to cover the skull, implying that a society’s prosperity is built on tons of dead bodies.
