Theory

Rethinking Family Rootedness in the Global Sense of Places
Chubing Ling

In the articles, the Global Sense of Places, the author writes about the changing definition of ‘places’. Starting with the phenomenon of time-space compression in this era, author talks about the changes and reasons that why sense of places has changed and also analyze some reasons behind it, which are related with capitalism, power of geometry, boundaries , social differentiation and etc. With fast speed of globalization, people have never been connected so close. As one of the person who are impacted, I have a very strong feeling that the sense of places are totally different from old generations in my family. Based on this article and my own cultural background, I transformed the understanding of this article to the visual expression to show how I have experienced in the process in global sense of places and how I tried to use the visual language to return to the rootedness in my family with the global sense of local.

First, what impressed me most is ‘time-space compression’. The author gave examples of the international branding and business all over the world, which are lined with succession of cultural import. Then he referred the capitalism as one of the important causes to time-space compression. Globalized business has brought many chances and jobs to people, which make the world economy or cooperation go round and also us go around world. Even though my country is a socialism country, capitalism still play an important role in the market. From my family’s 4-generation-history, dating back to the early 20th century, the oldest generation is my great grand mother. We had completely different concept of western countries and different view of Chinese tradition and culture. However, with the development of China’s economy, living standard has dramatically changed, which have changed life in the young. Now as a young generation, I have more chances to move around the world, not only because of the money but also because of the benefits from educational cooperation between different countries. What’s more, in the growth, my experience and understanding of time and space is changed because of many reasons, such as education, gender equality, technology and so on. As what said in the article,’It is capitalism and its development which are agued to determine our understanding and our experience of space.But surely this is insufficient.’From my view everything is very close and connected around world but from the older generation or family members seldom go around world, their sense of places are more local and their understanding of time and space changed slowly. Therefore, this will lead to generation gap in one family. That is why I make the ritual project, called ‘folding pray’. Time-space compress is the basic motivation and idea in this project.

Secondly, it is interesting author referred’ the power geometry’. There are three groups of people in this process. First group is people who are in a position of control. They are in charge of time-space compression.They use it and turn it into advantage. Second group is people who are doing many physical moving and the third group are simply on the receiving end of time-space compression. These three groups remind me of three generation in my family. Compared to each other, I am more like the people in the group one or two and my mother is in the second group. and my grandmother is the third one. For instance, when we both watch news on television. We have different views, especially between me and my grandmother. She always believe the whole news from mass media.When I am broad, she always think I will be easily in danger. But for me, I get information and news through various way to try to figure out the fact and the degree I can believe, thus this results that I don’t totally believe in the mass media and be critical sometimes. As I know sometimes information can mislead the public because of some people in the group one are in charge of the news. Grandma , in the end of time-space compression process, passively to get information.My mother is in the middle part. She made sacrifice for me to reduce the mobility in life. ‘It is not simply a question of unequal distribution, that some people move more than others, and that some have more control than others. It is that the mobility and control of some groups can actively weaken other people. looking at my family , it is clear that the older are weaken because of the young. This inequality made the gap generation in my family but it happen by family members’ own will and I think it it can be changed in some way.

How can it be changed, this gap in one family? First thing I think the rootedness in one family or locality should be admitted in a global perspective. Everyone can not resist the blood and local gene from the places one comes from. One person heritages the tradition from his family, and from each family, locality and local characters can be found. Or more widely, culture in one country can be seen from locality. As written in the article, sense of places is a progressive process.Different generation have different sense of places. The young go around the world and the old keep the tradition. However the locality or rootedness links both of them. Then the young come back bring new things outside, giving progress in one family, or one places. This is called heritage and development. As what said in the article,’We need, therefore, to think through what might be an adequately progressive sense of places, one which would fit in with the current global-local times and the feelings and relations they give rise to’, I try to use my work to take serious of my family and rethink my rootedness from my family when I am in Europe ,where is far away from my family and country, showing my respect and understanding. In the other way, it is also a way to express my new views on life or do new things to my culture.

In my work, time and space are expressed through the sky flowing and the the images designed layer upon layer, which visualizes time-space compression. Roots of the tree is used in my work to show the the tradition and strong support from my family. No matter where I am, family and I have the same sky and we have the same blood. Symbolic tool is a paper folding from my great grandmother, it is a link between me and my family. Also, paper folding is an old cultural symbolic tool in my country.

In a word, I am live in this era of time -space compression. Sometimes it is necessary to think our rootedness in a global sense. When standing outside the places we used to, it will be clearer and deeper to understanding the place we come from and the place beyond.