Some days ago, an article by Jia-Jun titled The problem with student shows was posted on this website and unsurprisingly, it elicited strong reactions from the ground especially those who were closely associated with the NUS exhibitions that were mentioned in the article. The reason these reactions were not expressed in the comments section will elude me but suffice to say, people were definitely talking about it in their private conversations.

One such response arrived in a Facebook message which I will reproduce here with kind permission from the author (name removed):

I just read one of your article on student shows, can you enlighten me on the intentions of the article, it seemed to have slammed us big time in a negative way.

Hope to get your reply on this soon. thank you.

Those sentences suggested that the original article needed to be elaborated to which my reply was as follows:

Let me begin by saying that the article’s intention was never to ‘slam’ you for the sake of putting all of you down. We (Myself and JJ), being products of the NUS system itself, are truly encouraged at the fact that the thesis exhibition can stand on its own feet. Having attempted it ourselves, I personally know the amount of effort it takes to pull everything together and no one can take that away from you. Of course it would be safe to simply give everyone a pat on the back for effort and gush about how wonderful it is but being safe is easy. To progress, we need to do the difficult thing which is to take a step back and be critical about what we see. And that is what the piece of writing did.

As you would have noticed, the article questions the very nature of all architecture exhibitions. It is questioning the year-end-exhibition format, its intentions and ultimately its audience. I don’t think this is something unique only to Singapore but rather one that is very deeply rooted in the fraternity across various architecture schools around the world. In fact, it was the AJ article that triggered alot of thought in us about this. Also, the fact that myself and my peers were there to see the exhibition that you put together and also the City Exhibition gave us a context to relate to and a basis for us to craft our case.

The article is saying that perhaps it is time for us to re-look at the means in which we present architecture to the public. With such a prime location and a wonderful opportunity to tell the world about architecture, what should architects and architecture students show? Do we need to show everything? Do any of these intricate building sections matter to the masses? Are these mapping diagrams understood by anyone other than architects? How accessible are these highly imaginative concepts to those who have no introduction to the subject matter? This is what we mean by “overzealousness” in the article.

Having said that, I also understand that it is not easy to edit out a work that is loaded with intellect. After all, how does one present a year (or five years depending on how you see it) of hard work to the public? How can one present a project crafted with much academic rigor to the masses?

Of course all of this assumes that the audience that the exhibition is trying to reach is ‘the public’ and so often we hear that the audience is “both the public and the professionals” but lets not kid ourselves, both of them are looking at completely different things and hence the material that we show should be catered to the relevant audience.

In summary, the whole point of the article was about questioning the status quo and I don’t have a definite answer to this. But I think the answer would lie somewhere within the realm of tighter curation of content. Perhaps a ruthless act of editing and paring down materials to the absolute essence. Or perhaps controlling the graphic and art direction of every display panel so that everything can be presented in a coherent manner. Or perhaps a more imaginative format (who said architecture must be on panels and models?). I think it is about a very careful selection of what we decide to put in and also what we choose to leave out.

I hope that my response gives you a better idea of where we are coming from. I am glad that this has evoked a response from you. In fact, I am even wondering if this conversation and discussion should be brought to a larger audience so that we can hear it all openly in the name of critical discussion.

Looking forward to hear from you again.

Yours in thought,
Adib

The reply was received in good spirit and both of us, the author of the original mail and the two of us at FIVEFOOTWAY, believe that this conversation should be shared with the larger community. So, may I invite you to leave your reactions in the comments section of this post. We would love to hear all the reactions and perhaps share what you think the future of architecture shows could be!