Nail Salon: Spatial Implications of Women’s Labour

  • Image credits: Chow Ho Lam and Tam Wing Huen

The Nail Salon explores the spatial implications of the women’s labour in Hong Kong to reflect on the future of feminist space in the post-industrial Chinese society. Starting from their work as the most intimate and the closest connection these women have with their space, the project opens up possibilities to think about it through the connections those women have to here and there, through the economies of their working conditions, the network of communities that support them, the families they take care of elsewhere, ultimately expressing the bondage of human beings across different scales. Nail Salon uses film-making to convey and re-elaborate the space, its use, its objects and its stories to put the near and far, the past and present narratives in conversation with their future.

The Nail Salon explores the spatial implications of the women’s labour in Hong Kong to reflect on the
future of feminist space in the post-industrial Chinese society. Starting from their work as the most intimate
and the closest connection these women have with their space, the project opens up possibilities to think
about it through the connections those women have to here and there, through the economies of their
working conditions, the network of communities that support them, the families they take care of
elsewhere, ultimately expressing the bondage of human beings across different scales.
Nail Salon uses film-making to convey and re-elaborate the space, its use, its objects and its stories to put the
near and far, the past and present narratives in conversation with their future.

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2021
Grantee: Chiara Oggioni and Yi Sun

Chiara Oggioni is an Italian licensed architect, Senior Researcher and Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong, where she teaches Design Studio.
She has worked on a variety of research and design-build projects in Italy, Spain, Ecuador, India, China and Mongolia with a focus on post-disaster reconstruction, participatory design, slum upgrading and rural-urban transformations. Her research and design contributions with Rural Urban Framework include film-making, design-build projects; two publications, and the exhibitions: CCA (2020), Venice Biennale (2018, 2021).
In the summer of 2021 on their 30th birthday, she co-founded Women’s Room with Yi Sun, looking into women-driven activities and their space through the lenses of architectural design.
Chiara holds a BSc(Arch) and MArch from POLIMI University of Milan, Italy and a second Master in International Cooperation Sustainable Emergency Architecture from UIC, Barcelona.
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Yi Sun is an architectural designer and Assistant Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests lie in socio-political issues and their spatial implications, such as one-child policy, women's labour and migration created by the construction of infrastructure. She has been leading projects focusing on rural development in China with Rural Urban Framework. Research projects include housing solutions for 500 families, community-centered healthcare typologies , and village planning during rural-urban transformation.
In the summer of 2021 on their 30th birthday, she co-founded Women’s Room with Chiara Oggioni, looking into women-driven activities and their space through the lenses of architectural design.
Yi holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from GSAPP Columbia University.

Organisation: Women’s Room

Women’s Room is a collective of research and design looking into iterations of women-driven overlooked spaces through two pairs of designers’ eyes . The first iteration Nail Salon reflects on the space of women’s labour taking place in multiple interconnected realities between Hong Kong and China. Born in the same month of the same year in two corners of the world, Yi and Chiara shared a desk in a room on their first day of work in Hong Kong. They have been working together ever since.