Artist Statement

“What does it mean to be private in a public bathroom? How can we provide a safe space for the marginalized while promoting sheltered diversity? When regarding a program that deals with the systematic behavior of fluids and the cultural stance it may impose, one must liquify and synthesize the two - both spatially and metaphorically - to inform the architecture.

Located in the poorest, yet most diverse area of a city, such as Tenderloin, San Francisco or Itaewon, Seoul, this self-sustaining bathroom spans two street parking lots. Blurring the visual boundaries through reflections and projections, the fluidity of space allows users to co-exist without abandoning security. This seemingly unsettling intrusion maintains a sense of anonymity but still manages to frame of our identity. It heightens our awareness of not only those activities that may or may not take place in the stalls, but also their spiritual essence. In these “private” stalls, the pedestrians, and the bathroom-goers don’t engage in a confrontational face-off, but rather a simple acknowledgment of one another through liquid vision.

The medium of film retrieves a crucial element to what has been lost in conventional architectural representations: Time. Time and space are architects’ chosen medium, as is paint to painters, and sound to musicians. Film is the most synthesized and curated medium in theatre, and its specificity frames the intent behind architecture in the truest sense. In this case, the intention is embedded in the liquidity of metaphysical spaces that compose the bathroom. The film uses Spike Jonze’s Welcome Home as a vessel to explore that intention. The public bathroom becomes a place you enter to escape from the homogeneity and the mundaneness of our surroundings, to brush against a culture we would otherwise overlook: the role of a public bathroom is now reversed. The film manifests over the overarching feeling of sonder, a sudden realization of the intricate yet vivid life of the people that surround us. The film then rejects reality in order to enter into it through abstraction of the choreography within the space: the breaking of the fourth wall. The dancer/protagonist explores the spontaneity of different spatial thresholds: from building to sidewalk to bathroom to street. In the final chapter, we zoom out to an opposite context where a similar scenario with a different protagonist unfolds, concluding with the reconciliation of the two protagonists.

Navigating public vs. private spectrum through the lens of a public program is inevitably tied to how the architecture touches on our culture and politics. We, as the designers of a public utility, choose to reveal certain things while hiding others. But so much of what defines us as individuals is what we decide to hide away, often for mass appeal. We rip out so much of ourselves in order to be numb. But to make ourselves feel nothing so as not to feel anything: what a waste! In a world where one’s racial, sexual and socio-economical history seems to define the most superficial and immediate, and often wrongly-assumed information about their identity, we cannot celebrate individuality nor begin to break those stereotypes without exposing what we once cherished as privacy. I am a firm believer that a blunt curious conversation instead of a cautious contemplation, as unsettling as it can be, is the most educational and empathetic strategy in creating a healthy environment. Within the technological context of 21st century, we are provided with more tools to connect with and teach one another, and delve into different perspectives. And what better ways to connect people than to share the most universal aspect of our needs?”