articulation
This photo series and short video explore the riverine edge of the Charles as a living metaphor for articulation—a concept central to Édouard Glissant’s archipelagic thinking. The splash captured in the key image is both gentle and abrupt, embodying the friction, confrontation, and connection that occur where water meets stone, where Cambridge meets Boston. Much like the sea weaves together the distinct yet interrelated identities of islands in an archipelago, the river and surrounding public landscapes act as connective tissues—linking buildings, people, and places across fragmented geographies. Each "island" along the riverbank holds its own identity, yet belongs to a shared, evolving whole.
This reflection emerged through a confluence of moments: my exposure to Glissant’s work during MIT DUSP’s Archipelagos conference in 2025, and a student-led MIT Architecture initiative centered on the word articulation. In that space, we disconnected from our phones and daily routines to connect with one another—familiar and unfamiliar—in new, intentional ways. This work captures the echoes of those dialogues, translated into the language of water, stone, and public space.
