sensing the soundscape

2024-2025

Sound Interaction Design/
Speculative Design/
Photography/
Book Design/

The stall economy emerged during the economic downturn, promoting urban consumption and employment, and injecting new vitality into the city’s recovery. With the normal operation of the economy, the unorganized, spontaneous, and gregarious stalls have gradually been marginalized by the city, driven away and constantly relocated. However, stalls are still one of the ways for the middle-aged and high-aged people to find employment. At the same time, the business of stalls depends on scale and crowds, which has also become the reason for a small number of people to gather. This project selects corresponding scenes and locations for this type of people by collecting different sounds from the streets, providing possibilities for the survival of stalls. At the same time, I pay attention to the damage of stalls to the urban environment. When providing a place to live, I also give the concept of environmental protection to reduce the possibility of being driven away and marginalized, and explore the possibility of the future existence of stalls.

In the process of exploring the stall culture, I found that many stall owners choose to gather together. The interdependence between stalls can attract a stable source of customers. I saw many stall owners greeting customers in the cold wind and late at night. They were very busy. The stall owners talked about life, making money, and joking with each other. The heat, fragrance, and lively voices formed a strong atmosphere of life and a positive attitude towards life. So I chose to pick up my camera and approach them, record these photos, and show the daily life of the stall owners.

Design: Xinyu Chen
Supervised by: Gong Yifan