As a space used to contain and juxtapose heterogeneous, connected structures, the Factory Building 1 in the area of Northern Chi Tu Qi created a social context of diasporic and unsettled dwellers for the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Sixth Fuel Factory, Hsinchu Branch. The embedded apartments as dwellings, on the one hand, conveyed the individuals’ identities, labor, and differences, and on the other hand served as a mapping of the demarcation, expansion, exchange, and reconfiguration of the dwellers’ bio-politics in this space. Based on this understanding and treating “Dia-City” as its practical method, the Factory Building 1 Project is intended to cogitate on the dual belongings of “origin—root” and “site—path.” In terms of methodology, the workshop of Sound Embroideries produces a haptic text with the narrative voice-over in this space, namely voice, speech, and physical sense of space. The “third voice” does not so much describe this space from a single, linear perspective as blends different interviewees as well as their memories of specific historical sites and depictions of objects into an embedded storage system of narratives, which includes the listening to the interviewees, the collection of local sounds, and the mutual interpretation of expanded places.

Textile embroidery is emblematic of cultural materiality, and the actions of sewing and mending imply a process of mutual understanding and synesthesia among multiple subjects. They also mirror the micro-narratives of the dwellers’ family history in their materiality. The approach of hand-making embeds partial details of each textile in the subtle traces of physical labor. On a more specific basis, it is nothing short of the recording and regeneration of the files of haptic memories of specific time and space. Based on their respective background contexts, the project participants will choose their preferred places for practice and recount the events unfolded therein. They will also discover related local sounds, thereby collectively excavating the writing of these spaces and creating corresponding soundscapes.