Tuesday, March 31, at 6:30 pm, architects Xiaoxi Chen, Lily Chishan Wong, and André Santos convene a gathering to present their work-in-progress multimedia project, Ta-Chim: Weighing a City’s Colonial Legacies. It traces the shifting political, material, and sensorial relationships between urban artifacts in Lisbon and Macao in search of postcolonial futures. “Ta-chim” translates to “balances” in Patuá, a critically endangered creole language developed in Macao, which was a Portuguese colony until 1999. The ongoing project was first exhibited at the 2025 Lisbon Architecture Triennale to ask: how does a city’s colonial legacies weigh against the seafaring rituals of homelands? Ta-Chim assembles archival images, films, performing bodies, and 3D scans to map circulations of post-colonial and diasporic matters and bodies.
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𝐓𝐀-𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐌: 𝐄𝐦𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲
Can technologies of sensing be reappropriated as offerings of care and resistance? By bringing technologies of cartography and navigation back to the ground and through our bodies, can colonial monuments “breathe” differently, to embody new, reciprocal relationships between humans, nature, and technology?
Mapping Procession: Xiaoxi Chen, Lily Chishan Wong, André Barros Santos, Philip Lee, Danyel Hueyopan, Alejandro Stein, Anita Osorio, Liberta Fredo, Lorena Tabares Salamanca, Pedro Tisott
Sensing Technology & Animations: André Barros Santos @andrebrros
Forager: Alejandro Stein @alejandrostein
Images: Danyel Hueyopan @ddecen.a
TA-CHIM: Weighing a City’s Colonial Legacies by Xiaoxi Chen & Lily Chishan Wong for @trienaldelisboa
𝐓𝐀-𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐌: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧
To image the world is to imagine it. How else might we represent and navigate our worlds —and the monuments of colonial histories? A public procession ritualizes a collective tracing of Macau in Lisbon guided by foraged biomaterial, biometric and air quality sensors, and low-res photogrammetry.
Procession: Xiaoxi Chen, Lily Chishan Wong, André Barros Santos, Philip Lee, Danyel Hueyopan, Alejandro Stein, Anita Osorio, Lorena Tabares Salamanca, Liberta Fredo, Pedro Tisott
Mapping & Sensing Technology: André Barros Santos @andrebrros
Photography: Danyel Hueyopan @ddecen.a
TA-CHIM: Weighing a City’s Colonial Legacies by Lily Chishan Wong & Xiaoxi Chen for @trienaldelisboa
𝗧𝗔-𝗖𝗛𝗜𝗠: 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗟𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 proposes a performative architecture for new rituals with technology and embodied spatial knowledge
On view (Oct 2, 2025 - Jan 4, 2026) at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture Center as part of the 7th Lisbon Architecture Triennale
Mapping & Sensing Technology: André Barros Santos
Props: Alejandro Stein, Caroline Alderson
Photography: Danyel Hueyopan
@trienaldelisboa@macccb.museu@andrebrros@alejandrostein@carolineelainealderson@ddecen.a
This is work-in-progress of TA-CHIM: Weighing a City’s Colonial Legacies, a project about Macau’s calçada stone pavement in the city’s maritime colonial legacies and casino urbanism. It is currently on view (Oct 2, 2025 - Jan 4, 2026) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Centro Cultural del Belém in Lisbon @macccb.museu , as part of the 7th Lisbon Architecture Triennale @trienaldelisboa
Fabrication team: Caroline Alderson @carolineelainealderson , Camryn Holland @itscamrynrae , Sewon Min @handyblaze , Jeanette Stargala, and Sophia Tosti @sophia_luna95
Translation and editing: André Barros Santos @andrebrros
Technology consulting: Lorenzo Villaggi @lorenzo.villaggi
Media support: Saung Yatu @charmoftheorient
Research support in Macau and Hong Kong: Julian Chan @maltie.jules , Lee Kim Yee (photos 1 and 2)
Institutional support: @u_soa@columbiagsapp@aavs_lisbon@macccb.museu , and the Maritime Museum of Macao
𝗫𝗶𝗮𝗼𝘅𝗶 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗻 is an architect, designer, and educator working across disciplines in critical practices of climate, media, and embodiment. She works with cultural and academic institutions to nurture new knowledge worlds for present and future justice.
𝗟𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗪𝗼𝗻𝗴 is a registered architect and researcher whose work focuses on the relationships between architecture, urban ecologies, and colonial legacies. Her practice is informed by her upbringing in British colonial Hong Kong and academic research about plant circulation and ecological design.
𝗔𝗻𝗱𝗿é 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗼𝘀 is a Brazilian architect and researcher interested in the architectures of extractivism, technology, and labor across scales and geographies. His practice bridges interdisciplinary research and speculative design, grounded in marginal positions within the Global South.
For the AA Visiting School, students will enact a method for embodied cartography to co-create prostheses for the body, a script, and choreography, culminating in a procession to map traces of Macau in Lisbon’s Belém waterfront district.
We will develop a wearable prototype that will consist of digital scanners, environmental and biometric sensors and recorders. The device will focus on embodied observations and movements, acting like a prosthetic that blurs bodily and environmental boundaries.
For the AA Visiting School, students will enact a method for embodied cartography to co-create prostheses for the body, a script, and choreography, culminating in a procession to map traces of Macau in Lisbon’s Belém waterfront district.
We will develop a wearable prototype that will consist of digital scanners, environmental and biometric sensors and recorders. The device will focus on embodied observations and movements, acting like a prosthetic that blurs bodily and environmental boundaries.
