The AA’s current exhibition Ripple Ripple Rippling, which opened last week, has been reviewed by Wallpaper* by Teshome Douglas-Campbell as part of their architecture column, describing the exhibition as ‘not your typical architecture show’.

Ripple Ripple Rippling is a multisensory exhibition which situates stories of the entangled flows of people and land around Shigushan village, a typical village on the outskirts of Wuhan in China. This is a project that has been working with Shigushan village since 2015 to record the life and landscape surrounding it, as a site of labour supply and resource extraction. Shigushan’s life and landscape embody the social and ecological dependences embedded within China’s urbanisation. Its villagers are part of the country’s 295 million-strong rural migrant workforce, known as the floating population. These workers go to cities to work, leaving their ageing parents and young children behind; for more than 80% of families in rural China, the middle generation is missing.

The Wallpaper* article includes excerpts of a conversation with the exhibition authors Cyan Cheng, Chen Zhan and Mengfan Wang:
“'Family structures are formed outside of what is prescribed, with alterations to the built environment to match this lifestyle of communality.' On the broader anthropological research within the exhibition, she continues: 'Architecture is not enough to capture everything that's going on. So our practice expands into other disciplines.'” (Cyan Cheng)

On the external installation situated on the southwest corner of Bedford Square that accompanies the exhibition in the AA Gallery, Teshome writes:
‘Spilling out of the confines of the AA's gallery setting, a partial reconstruction of a typical state-funded rural house sits among the quintessentially Georgian houses of Bedford Square, making for a slightly surreal contrast. Drystone walling demarcates domestic spaces such as a garden, porch, and living room amid the public forum of the square. This installation's ‘unfinished’ status references the often incomplete or semi-ruined buildings that lay in waiting for funds from family members working in the cities.’

Ripple Ripple Rippling is on view in the AA Gallery until 7 December and the outdoor installation will be on Bedford Square until 6 November.

Image: The Ripple Ripple Rippling exhibition in the AA Gallery. Image credit: Anne Tetzlaff.