2024

Tracing the Line of Heritage: Excavating Childhood Memories & Unveiling Artistic Architectural Collaboration

Sandy Lin

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https://www.instagram.com/art.withsandy/
Chapter 6

Tracing the Line of Heritage is a journey through memory and loss in a world of rapid redevelopment. This project centres on a demolished childhood home that once held nineteen family members under one roof, using fragments of memory, photos, and family stories to rebuild its spirit. In Flat Bush, where unique homes give way to uniform structures, a homogenised landscape emerges, stripping the area of its rich history and community ties. These new buildings, built to last yet void of heritage, reflect society’s fixation on the present—creating a landscape that exists outside the pull of time and memory.

 

In exploring my curiosity about lost heritage, I realised that many of these buildings are remembered through exhibitions, books, and photographs. This raised the question: how can drawings commemorate and uniquely capture the memory of buildings that no longer exist?

 

Drawing the objects
Imprints of inhabitation of the childhood home
Layer plan
Final post factum documentation of the house in plan, holding traces of memory and changes over time

Architectural drawings traditionally show how buildings are constructed, but here, they also hold the memories, stories, and subtle transformations that breathe life into a place. It’s about documenting not just the structure, but the experiences and histories that linger long after.

 

Collecting | Recalling | Drawing | Assembling

 

My process involved gathering photographs, stories, and memories, reflecting on personal and family experiences, and using drawings to layer and explore these fragments. The result is a cohesive documentation that holds the traces of the past, preserving them as a record of memory and heritage.

 
Element
Element of Memory series of the childhood home inspired by Perry Kulper’s Landscape drawings
Childhood home
Lin family Flat Bush childhood home (2005)
Thematic drawing
Thematic drawing: collaging my view of the house’s shared spaces.

My childhood home stood as a familiar yet somewhat enigmatic space, its past largely unknown to me. Through research, I uncovered a previously hidden history: the house was once inhabited by the Poole family and was a collaboration between architect James Hackshaw and artist Colin McCahon. The Pooles, avid patrons of artist Garth Tapper, had a large collection of his works, and McCahon even designed a leadlight window specifically for the house. This discovery led me to explore the house's full history, tracing its evolving landscape and the stories of its previous occupants. Over time, extensions to the building reflected shifts in familial and cultural dynamics, revealing a rich layer of interconnected histories, lived experiences, and architectural transformations.

 
Colin mccahon window
Colin McCahon window and draft window model
Screenshot 2024 06 22 at 12 15 27 PM
Documenting the memories through painting with my family
Transformation of the house
Changes to the childhood house over the years 1940-2004
Layered section
Final post factum documentation of the house in section, holding traces of memory and changes over time