Gallery talk at opening of Beta-Real exhibition on May 3, 2018 in Slocum Hall.
A culminating exhibition of Linda Zhang’s fellowship research, “Beta-Real: The Materiality of Loss” opened with a special gallery talk in the Slocum Hall Marble Room by K. Michael Hays, Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and interim chair for the Department of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. An exhibition opening reception followed Hays’ talk.
The work in this exhibition was made using slip casting—a technique commonly employed in the mass production of ceramics—to develop an iterative “thinking by making” protocol that offers, in its processes, and in the material results produced, an alternative to conventional architectural preservation and reconstruction. Specifically, the work exhibited here produces architectural memories, identities and histories by focusing on three seemingly banal site-types: roadways, commemorative monuments, and the sites of performative rituals.