Divergent Memories of Tumen Shan-shui

Abstract

Focusing on the interplay between memory and place, this article examines the rationale behind the use of axonometric drawings (axons) in a geographical research study of the Tumen/Tuman River region encompassing the borders shared by China, Russia and North Korea. The concepts of “memory of place” and “place of memory” guide the structure of this project and the flow of this article. “Memory of place” emphasises the lived experience of our physical senses, and helps determine the great potential of visual methodologies in the fields of geographical and landscape research and study. Drawn up using the graphic production techniques of abstracting, foregrounding, highlighting and juxtaposing, axons avail themselves of and inform both realist and idealist states of mind. In contrast, “place of memory” references a particular type of materiality and helps us understand Tumen Shan-shui as a library of memories that reveals a profusion of contested aesthetic, cultural and political meanings. Axons serve to tell narratives revealing desires, actions and undertakings that have shaped and continue to shape the substance of the memory sites in question including infrastructure, architecture and signage. Initially adopted by the author as a medium for recording and communicating due to security restrictions imposed in the border areas in question, the creation of axons generated new insights on methods of documentation in landscape research, and the places and landscapes themselves.