Abstract:
“The concept of the everyday illuminates the past as everyday life has always
existed,1 days following one after another and resemble one another.”2
Everyday living is centred on everyday practices that impose ‘monotony
and familiarise to a routine’.3 The mechanical and repetitive gestures of
daily routine impose their acquaintance and familiarise the banality. It can
blind one to recognise the little moments that fill life in details and breeds
insensibility and lack of awareness about the spaces we occupy. Each day
consist of these ‘small’ and the ‘most everyday’ moments. However, therein
lies the contradiction of everydayness; everything changes.4
Due to its momentary and unexpected features, the spontaneity forms
the gap, the in-between space that lets the moments of everyday pleasure
slip. The concept of pleasure recognises a similar nature as it can emerge
from anywhere through its elusive, bodily and fleeting nature, as to how
Lefebvre describes it, “appearing only to disappear again.”5 Grounded on
Henri Lefebvre’s notion of the everyday and enjoyment, this thesis explores
the concept of everyday pleasure as the in-between spaces in the text,
as the opportunity to capture and appreciate it through the practice of
printmaking.
This thesis explores to “find space” within the process of the most twodimensional
method to echo upon one’s innate memories of everyday
pleasure. Through the process of printmaking, each moment of small and
ordinary childhood memories was portrayed. The following proposition
of this thesis is an installation of the in-between, a threshold composed
of small pieces of happy moments in every day that helps to confront,
encounter and relate to the essential tone of pleasure offered in the
everyday. The notion of everyday pleasure to be taken as architectural
experience, instead of just a mere feeling, this thesis is a step to incorporate
architectural experiential values to accentuate on these small pleasures.
Furthermore, to move them from the margins a bit closer to the centre of
our collective consciousness and our everyday lives.