Refusing Refuse

An Outdoor Exhibition Proposal Addressing U.S. Trash Export and International Refusal at Pell/Doyer Street Intersection, Chinatown, NYC.

Instructor: Youngjin Song

Rhode Island School of Design Department of Interior Architecture | FA 2021

“Once waste disappears, it is not meant to reappear. It tells stories that are not meant to be remembered.”

Who is then responsible for our unwanted past?

The exhibition ventures to play upon the topic of blame and responsibility between the West and the East. The design solution addresses the transactional relationship between both sides and presents the contrasting media portrayal regarding the issue from either end. The various interactions between the viewer and the presented information hint at the sensitive tension around the topic as well as the active exertion to learn, but most importantly emphasize the collaboration to reveal the full story, looping back to the cyclic pattern of the shared ecosystem.



The outdoor exhibition is designed to be installed at the convergence point between Pell Street and Doyer street, one of the main intersections of New York Chinatown. The establishment of Chinatowns in the States in the aftermath of an unjust history of Chinese immigrants in America. 
Pell street symbolically stretches from West to Eastin the coordinate direction and is bisected by Doyer street which creates a T-intersection. This site-specific exhibition is dissected into 4 parts, each corresponding with the direction of the site to symbolically represent the relationship of the two continents.










Westside Newsprint Prototype:
Printed on newsprint, rescanned. 



Exhibition Model
1/8” wire armature
newsprint
vellum
receipts
plastic toy parts








Branding




Design Development Sketch Models
Attempts to visualize trash