Banyan Commune / Time Museum, HuangBian, Guangzhou — 2017. What it meant to me will eventually be a memory is a project initiated by Henryandpartners to explore, collect and share the memories of the HuangBian community.
Henryandpartners set up a community space — a repair shop — and hosted collaborative activities such as HuangBian map drawing and a 2nd-hand shop.
A repair shop offering free repair service for people in the HuangBian community, in exchange for stories and memories.
Repair Shop itself as an activation for people to rethink their relationship with their belongings.
阿亮包搞定 — Mr. Liang fix ’em all
Mr. Liang fix ’em all is a project by A Liang and his friends, trying to connect with the HuangBian community in outer Guangzhou city. Using Time Museum’s Banyan Commune space as a station to experiment, A Liang opened a repair shop for household and personal belongings. Offering free repair as a tool for engagement, to initiate conversation and connect with locals — a free treatment for personal belongings in exchange for stories and memories. Through the period of six weeks, A Liang developed his friendship; one thing lead to another.
HuangBian is an area mixing new middle-class living compounds with a congested urban village. As the trend of consumerism in China rose — the ease of online shopping, the high cost of repair — people tended to throw things away more than keeping them.
What is the meaning created when broken memorabilia is repaired? What is the reason you still keep it? What can we learn from these memories and stories? What kind of meaning do we create from the repurposing of left-over objects?
Repairment and repurpose as an artistic practice — creation arising from the community, for the community, through the processes of communication and collaboration, eventually becoming part of the community.