ACCELERATOR
Ang Li
Place of Assembly, 2021
Using reclaimed brick pavers sourced from demolition sites around the city, the installation recalled the historic row houses that once defined Chinatown’s residential fabric and the vibrant stoop culture these buildings supported. The project reimagined the familiar symbol of the stoop as a series of modular brick structures that could be reconfigured to allow for different seating arrangements.
As Ang put it during the creative process, “Once I started digging into this topic, I realized a lot of other artists and residents were doing something similar and preserving the oral histories from the neighborhood, specifically around the historic row houses that were demolished during the highway construction projects in the 1950s and 60s. It’s been exciting to plug into this history in some way and consider how to recreate this social environment that isn’t really there anymore.”
As its title suggests, Place of Assembly provided two parallel experiences: as an adaptable gathering space reflecting the collective needs of the Chinatown community and as a relatable, human-scale monument that drew attention to the rapid material turnover of the city. The project’s original placement was a vacant lot at 8-12 Hudson Street in Boston’s Chinatown, known as Chinatown Backyard. Later, it stood transformed into a gathering space recalling the neighborhood's stoop culture.
A set of nine structures made up an informal and interactive playground that complemented activities of the nearby community garden. Each unit could rotate to accommodate programming needs during events from story circles to movie screenings to outdoor concerts.
“Ang Li’s project brilliantly captures and reimagines the history and spirit of Chinatown’s stoop culture with a nod to the development forces threatening the liveability of the neighborhood. We are proud to support this project that honors traditions while also asking audiences to reimagine how intergenerational dialogue and storytelling can enhance and preserve a vibrant neighborhood.” — Triennial Executive Director Kate Gilbert
LOCATION
The project was relocated to Leather District Park from its original home on Hudson Street.
ACCELERATOR
Ang Li
Ang Li is an architect and Assistant Professor in the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University. Her work explores the maintenance practices and material afterlives behind architectural production through site-specific installations and temporary building experiments. Ang has participated inexhibitions at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, the Echo Art Fairin Buffalo, NY, and the Carnegie Museum of Art, among others.
Her most recent solo-exhibition, All That Is Solid—an investigation into the inventory systems of the contemporary waste-processing industry–was exhibited at Space p11 as a partner program to the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Her writing and work has been published in the Journal of Architectural Education, Log, Thresholds, Abitare, Wiredand Blueprint. Before joining the faculty at Northeastern, Ang was a Visiting Artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the 2015–16 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at the University at Buffalo.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from the University of Cambridge and a Master’s of Architecture from Princeton University. During the Accelerator program, Ang looks forward to engaging Boston’s public art landscape through the city’s architectural inheritance.