Historically speaking, storefront overhangs
in Taiwan were created due to the island’s warm and rainy climate. After the
related policies implemented during the Qing regime and the regulations in the
period of Japanese rule, storefront overhangs have become a characteristic
architectural sight in Taiwan, not only providing pedestrians a sheltering
space from wind and rain but also serving as an extension of stores— they are,
in short, a unique interface between the public and private spaces.
"Wanderland" is based on the storefront overhangs in Wanhua District. In this historical
zone of Taipei that has witnessed as much glory of the city as its decline, the
storefront overhangs form a corridor that has preserved traces of time and a
common site where vendors, passersby, residents, homeless people, tea parlors
and street delis intermix, carrying memories and feelings of people who have
spent years living and lingering in this space, one that is like home but not
quite. The work uses 3D scanning to record people’s daily life in the
storefront overhangs that seems coagulated yet constant moving. The gathered
point cloud data resemble gradually accumulated crystallization of time, and in
the dynamic flow of time, it has continuously converged and dispersed again.
When the trajectory of people’s life merges with the river of time, every
moment in their life has joined together and become an ever-extending
continuation.
