Anqi Liu

How might permanent nomadism give rise to new states of being?

It is the year 2040, and new laws on nomadism have been passed where home can be anywhere. CELAND is an micronation that claims the Charleston estate as part of its territory. The nation stages and celebrates notions of privacy as the possibility of freedom.

In the future, the boundaries between work and domestic life are no longer clearly defined. And privacy doesn’t mean being alone in a space, it is a critique on the idea of co-inhabiting, and collective dwelling. The existence of micro-society challenge domestication of society; the patriarchal logic of domestic space, and modern neighbourhood ecology.

Using tent as the housing typology, spaces are self-sufficient, shared ownership, liberation from gender roles, blurring the boundaries between private and public, live and work, sleep and eat. The proposal allows people who can’t afford to rent or own a property to be in the state of ‘permanent nomadism’.

Anqi Liu is an interior designer who is constantly interested at the field of architecture and art. Enjoys seeing/creating/reading about art, spatial design, installation art, and architecture. Based in China, HK and the UK.

She want to explore on one of the basic human requirements – to dwell, and one of the central human acts – to inhabit. We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind. Prompted by the post-pandemic situation, it is worth discussing how minimum dwelling and flexible living could be redefined in the near-future. 2040 is a future of flexibility, a world where people can live in the state of ‘permanent nomadism’, unlike other micronations CELAND is a community that live a life of self-sufficiency and flexibility. The proposal question how can we envisage and redesign the nature of domestic space in a new era of nomadic living.

The film takes the form of desktop documentary, to examine, record and captures the reality, through methods of structuring, and organising. Where an image is maintained by the boundaries of the frame, the film is preserving the image into an archive. With first and second chapters speaking about real situations and events, interpreting factual materials around the topic of micronation. While the last chapter introduces unreal elements or fictional situations of CELAND.

Medium:

video, reel

desktop-documentary

Using Charleston house as the site to reimagine how it can be reinhabit in the future. The reference of superstudio’s grid pattern envisage on a nomadic lifestyle, in this case a grid that would allow people to co-inhabit with freedom.

In a post-pandemic society, we are more connected yet more socially isolated than ever before. The idea of the home as a retreat, sanctuary, self-contained micro-worlds comes into question. The boundaries between work and domestic life are no longer clearly defined.

CELAND locates at what was originally Charleston farmhouse, with purported currency Celand dollar. Decedents of the Bloomsbury group are elected as the presidents, they also issued the Celand passport.

Axo drawing – The diagram shows how the spaces grow with the existing building, it illustrate the process of how the structures adapt and evolve with its original context. The structures can be replaced, suggesting a process of continuous growth and replacement.

Axo diagram

Medium:

GIF

speculative-futures

Anqi Liu

Medium:

Medium:

Social

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Royal College of Art