Photographs capture the quotidian. They are literal traces of light in a moment, proof for the details the abstracted maps and time-lines leave behind. They make the affects of larger spatial phenomena tangible. They capture the human. The six graduate theses on display all seek to document the traces of spatial phenomena on the everyday. The themes explored are complex, caused and sustained through the affects of politics, religions, and economics on spaces, people, and landscapes for years. With these photographs, the authors aim to translate the big data back into the architectural scale, the scale in which individuals experience their surroundings. The photographs show the haunting truths of contested questions without judgement. They are a tool for empathy. They are evidence.
At first glance, all the photographs capture mundane movement through everyday life. Yet they have embedded within them great questions about the apartheid separation of the Holy Land, the affects of the Chinese Cultural Revolution on individuals, the pragmatic brutality of cremation, the heritage of placeless exile in Iran’s LGBTI+ community, the inflicted wounds of roads and towers on the Great Plains, and the legacy of the Belgian colonization of the Congo. The pictures on display aim to capture the truth of individuals, moments, and places ignored or misunderstood.
Master
Works is
an
annual
juried
exhibition
that
provides
an
opportunity
for
recent
graduates
of
the
Master
of
Architecture
program
at
the
University
of
Waterloo
to
submit
proposals
for
solo
and/or
group
exhibitions
based
on
their
graduate
theses. Master
Works encourages
applicants
to
expand
their
research
into
a
new
three
dimensional
form
and
to
experience
developing,
designing
and
presenting
an
exhibition
in
a
professional
gallery.
Photo credit: Marco Chimienti, I went for a Drive (thesis).