Here, we take a moment to learn from Christina Chi Zhang. An architect-storyteller and overall wonderful human whose work thoughtfully exists as a medium for coping in post-traumatic cities. As we look towards seemingly infinite possible outcomes for our careers in an ever-expanding field, it feels grounding to have a look at the people who are part of those paving the way for us.
So far in Christina’s relatively short yet accomplished career, she has created such a distinct niche for herself within the field that translates into each project contributing to one larger idea. I’ve taken the time to hear more about her process specifically for this year’s project and how her previous work has informed her throughout, as well as having had a moment to reflect with her on broader experiences she has had and lessons she has learned.
Her current installation in the School of Architecture’s marble room, I Found Within Me an Invincible Summer, invites us to step into its immersive storybook and reflect on questions that extend beyond our current perspectives. If you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to take a moment to immerse yourself in her world.
I started by asking her about the mediums that have hosted her projects and what they might transform into in the future.
+ If you had the opportunity to take this project just one or two or three steps ahead, what would you imagine it looking like, and what medium would it take? Would it stray further from or closer to what you define architecture to be?
Just a brief recap of how I came to this project, because I feel like every project I’ve done in the past about storytelling and trauma and joy and empathy has been like, Oh, I’ve reached the limit of what I can do with this and then every project is another format. My first project, the written work, is really to complicate this singular, simplified view of what a refugee camp is through the perspective of people who actually grow up and live in the refugee camps. That had limitations of how much visual expression I could have because I wasn’t trained as an architect yet, so I didn’t have all the tools to actually create a visual space. And so that was why I started with writing.
In my second project, I went to Bosnia and Rwanda to talk about women who survived gender based violence in genocide and war. They have gone through unimaginable pain and violence that they cannot describe or cannot say, so words become something that doesn’t work for them, so then in that project I created a virtual reality landscapes of trees and plants that they grew and healed with after going through trauma, they start observing, or start finding things in life that they notice. So as an architect, my role was to make a space where everyone feels like they can find their voice in it without actually having to say it.
Part of this project’s [I found within me an invincible summer] proposal is that I want to explore a new way of taking this type of trauma and more complex struggles with violence around us, but in a way that connects people. So my attempt at this storybook is for people to jump out of their own perspectives and instead, into that of a dandelion, of a lake, of a cicada where you don’t have to carry all of these loads that you have with you as a human being, as an adult who grew up in a specific social environment so that you can actually start seeing the world differently and think ‘what if all of these human problems don't matter at that point, what do we care about and how do we talk about this conversation of creating a kinder city?’ That's why I decided to talk about it in an immersive, calming, but somewhat unnerving, a bit unsettling environment for people, for them to start picking out these points while feeling like you want to enter this space. It brings you joy, so that once you enter, you can start discovering all these other elements embedded in it that make you less comfortable.
The specific format of a children’s book is because I feel like a children's book provides the easiest and simplest answers that are the most direct and most powerful that somehow as adults, we just can’t have anymore. You can’t be naive. You always have to give multifaceted, well argued answers to things, but eventually what really matters is what we believe as humankind, that we want to love this world and have a kind space while we understand the specific issues that we are working through. So that’s why in the end the storybook is that attempt to combine everything I've explored through words, through visuals and through this built environment now that as an architect, I have the full skillset to create a space that I believe can impact people.
And then to take it to the next step, I think I would want to go back a little bit to what I did in my first project, where I talk with people, live with them, and make their story part of the argument. I want to bring this storybook setup of the world back to the community and have people change it, shape it, and make another version that also reflects people’s own. If I had more time, I would have integrated all of the others actually embedded in the community part of it back. So I think that is something I would hope to do in my next city, and next get to really talk with people and get to know them.
+ For the specific medium that you stand in front of in the marble room, how did you get to that point?
When I started reading about trauma theory and memory studies, when I was researching on topics of war and displacement there were several schools of thoughts.
Some people are activists who believe that you should reveal the rawness of a trauma and show it as a disturbing thing. That's one train of thought–that you can't sugarcoat any of the things like this. But to me, the urge to provoke disregards people who've been through it; it just repels them. It's their space. You're talking about their story, but it makes it impossible for them to access it. So then there's another school of thought that came from people who actually lived through the war and who are actually refugees that I talked to, they have this attitude of like, you know, fuck it. Life is hard, so we need to have fun and we need to live a life too. Just because we're in war doesn't mean that we all have to be miserable. And there’s a different type of power that I feel like I want my work to celebrate, that’s a specific spirit that really touched me. It’s good to explore what you believe through real work.
+ How do you narrow it down from so many ideas and leads to a specific site and concept and have it translate into what you’ve created?
That’s a question that will always be there. I think one thing that really helped me to choose my direction and choose what I focus on is trust in your own instinct and trust in your own emotions. The things that you feel the most strongly about will lead you to do the most powerful work. I know it's not right to reduce the whole global refugee experience to sad kids behind fences, and it's not helpful for fundraising, for doing productive projects. So that anger propelled me to go to a refugee camp and to prove people wrong that this is not the right way to represent this issue. And the whole time I was really driven by the anger of wanting to defy this way of describing a refugee camp.
And when I actually meet with people, it's really natural, like when you go somewhere, be on their side and start connecting with people heart to heart, you'll naturally know what is the right thing to do. It becomes finding my unique position where I feel like there's a point for me to carry these voices because no one else can carry them. So part of the direction of my project also naturally comes from when you're in the site, realizing who you are and how people see you, and how you can use that position to tell the best story is a big part of it.
+ Is there anything that isn't strictly related to architecture that you feel is especially formative or very crucial to what you have produced so far today?
I think the problem I have with a strict definition of architecture is that it excludes all these peripheral intersections of all these other things that intersect with architecture. And it's a really important part of making architecture unique and driving architecture that often gets left out. So for me, I see everything I do as something that feeds and informs my design and my space making. So I do enjoy talking to people in a way that I feel like they are challenging how I think of architecture and how I think of disciplinary boundaries. I think people who believe that architecture should have a strict disciplinary boundary are people who haven’t talked to people outside of architecture enough.
+ What is the architect’s role in translating trauma and coping into physical space? Is this something that kind of results consequently from a process and occurs naturally or is this explicitly designed? Sometimes I don't know my place as an architect. Like, where should I let things just take their course, and where is it okay to kind of exercise providing space?
I think architects have a strong hand in it. It's often an ideal when people do community engaged work to say that the community should be able to, in the end, create their own space, because they know what they want. So architects don't need to insert themselves. But I think, from my experience, they need an architect. They need the special training that we've gone through, the way we perceive space, the way we logically think through and make decisions. The training is useful in those situations, and the things we can create that's in our mind would end up surprising people in a very good way. So I do feel like architects can have a pretty strong hand in creating spaces of healing and commenting, but how well and sensitively we do that takes training. So some architects who are consciously trying to become more sensitive and more of a like empathetic person would always be able to create more emotionally powerful spaces shared by people, and some spaces just don't resonate with people. So it's also proof that this type of training is needed to create spaces that truly matter for people. So I do feel like from all the works we've seen, all the things we're exposed to, we have a larger reservoir of beautiful spaces in our heads that we can realize for people that they might not have the privilege to be exposed to.
I think that’s more a question of being a human being rather than being an architect, because from your own instinct, social instinct, or emotional instinct, what you need to make, make room for people, you will know when is the right time for you to come in and provide something for them.
+ When you were a college student, what were some goals that you had for yourself at that age and what did you expect to be doing, and how did that reflect in your day to day?
School teaches you to think in a certain way, but once you get out of school, there's so many ways to do things, and one really important decision I made is to always channel my anger into something productive.
So sometimes it's important to remember, don't try to fight your education, but rather use what you have and how it's shaping you to do something productive. That's how I've always, I guess, done my projects up to this point, and these projects, even though, when you're doing it, you don't realize how important it is to your career development, you're just doing it out of your belief at that point, but because it came out of a part of who you are. In the end, all of them will help you and become part of your experience that shapes your view in architecture tremendously. Obviously architecture industry has a lot of limitations, especially in the US, but at the same time, I was seeing it as like, whatever I can learn from this, like running a project, fundraising, talking to clients, all of those are useful skills, so it's important to also focus on the points that would help you become a better person. And then I took what I could learn and I really appreciated the experience, and then went to grad school knowing what I want to focus on, having had all of these skills.
And everything just starts rolling once you enter, find your direction, and you know you naturally find your place, when you have an identity, and people can start seeing you as a unique individual, and things get easier and easier, and you realize you've found your niche where you can do something you fully believe in, while people would respect you for doing that. So I think my process probably would resonate with a lot of students who are angry about certain things, but don't know how to channel this energy, and I think knowing that you're going to leave school and you're going to find yourself and be a unique individual is important belief to keep in mind so that you can start using this energy to define your identity as a designer and do meaningful projects with them, and eventually become you because of your beliefs and things you do or don't agree with.
+ You mentioned working in other cities, so I was wondering, how have your travels and working in other countries informed your career? And what advice would you give to people that are considering maybe doing that?
I would start by saying that traveling and working in different places, it's often seen as a privileged thing. I mean, it is privileged, but it doesn't mean that you have to be rich to do it. I came to the US with full financial aid, with $20. My first year, I had to make a decision between buying a water kettle or a lamp. I bought the lamp and I drank shower water. Apply for grants, fellowships, funding, and there are a lot of resources if you look for it. It's the leveling field. When you get these fellowships, you can quickly catch up with other people who have more resources. And I do feel like traveling helped me, both personally and professionally. Professionally, obviously, it gave me a lot of experience. I know how the architecture industry operates in northern Europe versus in the US. I've worked in New York City and Copenhagen and Shanghai, and the comparison made me know how I want to run my own practice and how I want to prepare my students for different industries and what they should argue for, what they should stand for, stand by, and what they should resist, and what they should identify as a type of abuse. All of these and exposing my student to the problems, the pros and cons in different cities and different industries is very important to me, and knowing it myself, I know the right way to do things, not necessarily the objectively right way, but for myself, the right way to do things. So it's very helpful. And I think a lot of people appreciate seeing international experiences when you look for jobs so that you can bring knowledge from one place to another. When I applied for jobs in Denmark, everyone was looking for someone who has a US perspective. So that was my asset, to bring them like my US, education, background, and then coming back to the US, everyone wants to know how Copenhagen works. So it's definitely very helpful. And personally, too, I think it just made me a better person. Like, I carry a lot of trauma with me. I'm sure a lot of students do, we all had some type of difficulties that we have to work through, but going to a refugee camp, going to a post war city, and seeing the world helped me understand the multiplicity of human experience and human suffering and how people live, and how people who have been through really like incredible atrocities, how they managed to pick up their life again and see hope in life and see love again. It just makes me feel like it made my heart and world bigger, and it made me a lot more of a calm person who has more space to love other people. So it's really important to be receptive to that when you travel as well, to just open your heart when you go to places and fully take other people's life and use that to help yourself too.
+ Do you have any goals that you have for yourself right now and things that you're really looking forward to in the near future or maybe ten years from now?
I've just become a tenure track professor at Lehigh University. Which means I have full freedom to do my research and work with communities. So my contract is 40% research, 40% teaching, 20% service. So I really want to continue all my research, put out more exhibitions, do more work with community, build more projects that I truly believe in, and work with people that I feel like I can resonate with, like at Syracuse, I met the Deaf new Americans, like deaf resettled refugee group over here, and worked with them to build like an urban kitchen. So this type of project, like a small group of individuals who are really inspiring, who can generate very productive spaces, together with me, I want to do more of those projects, and being in academia allows me to not have to worry about getting paid for these projects because I'm paid by the school. So I want to do more of that, and I look forward to teaching more students. It's really fun to use my research and see how students respond to it differently and generate new ideas from it. And I'm planning to get licensed soon, to actually be a licensed architect, and I think part of it is that as an unlicensed person, I can't really critique the definition of architecture, because people would always feel like, well, you're just sour because you're not licensed. But now, very soon, with a license–I have two exams left–I can say whatever I believe, and I can actively be a part of shaping the definition of architecture, a major asset. It's very interesting to me, because I didn't expect to become a professor, even until I graduated from grad school, I thought I would do this fellowship for one year and then go back to the industry, but now I'm teaching full time, so I'm also trying to navigate what it means to be a full time teacher rather than an architect. But I think ultimately teaching is the best way to do my own practice. So I'm excited to find the balance in that.
+ And that’s the goal? To have your own practice?
I sort of already do, because I have all these projects that I'm building and installing. It's not formalized as like a studio Christina or something, but I guess finding my path where I have identity, with my practice, with the type of work I do. Am I a community person? Am I like a storytelling person? Am I an abolitionist? Am I an activist? So all of these, I'm excited to explore what my identity will be, and how would I label myself, or how other people label me? It’s all exciting.
+ Closing thoughts?
This conversation really recapped a lot of things I've been thinking about. One really interesting thing is, this past year, I was, because my fellowship was ending, I was looking for jobs. So I went to so many interviews where you have to give a one hour talk that recaps your entire professional life. No pressure. It really helped me rethink my belief in architecture, because you have to position your work in your belief of how architecture education should be and how we should reshape this industry in our next generation of teachers. And a big thing that I thought about is what architecture means, and I usually start with this word play of “just architecture.” So just architecture that's formal expressions and building and technology and just architecture, where architecture that's just and socially responsible, and how you channel the most productive conversation is you acknowledge both as meaningful and important parts of architecture and media. I feel like all my work I've done is a combination of the two. It's about form, and it's about just and what we care about. So I think, if there's one note I can leave to some Syracuse students, I noticed there is a lot of friction between this dichotomy of architecture being just architecture, or architecture being uber progressive. But I think in the end, if you accept architecture as a spectrum of all of these topics in between, it becomes much more productive the way you think about space.
Many thanks to Christina Chi Zhang for her lovely insight.