“In the middle of winter, I at last discovered there was, within me, an invincible summer.”
— Albert Camus, “Return to Tipasa”, The Summer (1953)
Behind the Marble Room doors is an open storybook. Here a lake, a cicada, and a family of dandelions await. They will tell you three stories about the winters and summers of Syracuse:
Lake’s Story
They colonized me and possessed me as property. Yet I love you all: crayfish and catfish and ospreys and starlight and clouds and willow trees and humans and buttonbushes alike. Come sit with me and listen to my stories: the sound of cells splitting, wind breathing life, mercury buried, toxic chemicals dumped, and new lives birthing inside my body.
Cicada’s Story
In the many dark years that I lived in the embrace of this dark, moist ground, I had a lot of time to ponder. What is the soil made of? As I burrowed toward the light across strata, I saw blood, sweat, and wreckage of demolished homes. Who do these belong to and where are they from? How did they get entrenched and buried in my soil? I need to find out before summer comes.
Dandelions’ Story
We are constantly ripped up from our land and apart from our kin. We drift; we are carried by wind, birds, human hands. We root; we give and nourish and make kins everywhere we go. We have no home, but everywhere is home. We tell a story of dislocation and the bonds of kinship.
Cabinet of footnotes
The three stories inside the Marble Room draw from many historical events and ongoing resistances, but they only capture a fraction of the immense efforts and struggles shaping Syracuse today. To get a deeper dive, after you visit the exhibition, please make a stop at the “cabinet of footnotes.” There, you will find all the articles, oral histories, ongoing struggles, and other documents that gave form to these three stories made from so many more.
I am immensely grateful for this year of research and teaching at Syracuse Architecture, made possible by the Harry der Boghosian Fellowship. I would like to thank my mentors and colleagues at Syracuse University, especially Michael Speaks, Eliana Abu-Hamdi, and Kyle Miller for their generous support throughout this year. I am thankful for every story and life that inspired my exhibition. I want to offer special thanks to Aryan Ambani ’25, Karen Villacis ’25, and James Barbier ’25, the exhibition production team; Michael Giannattasio and John Bryant, the fabrication shop; Andy Molloy, Daryl Olin, and Christopher Cavino, the technology support. It was also a truly humbling experience to teach and learn from the students of Syracuse Architecture. They have given me courage and innumerable ideas that led to this exhibition. Thank you.
Christina Chi Zhang
Syracuse Architecture
Harry der Boghosian Fellow 2023–24
