Rebellious landscape : reaction as parallel city

Abstract

Militarized Urbanism is never expressed so strongly, but after the Occupy Central Movement in 2015 and all the evolved protests that strike Hong Kong afterwards, it has been unveiled. This city has been urbanized and configure in favor for the power of the government to control the population, both on a state power aspect and on a social aspect. Heated by the confrontation to the method of selection of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, the awareness of people to government policy and decision has been raised to historical high that it is inevitable to not talk with politics. Discontent with the government in their policy regarding housing, social welfare, policy favor to the state, bureaucrats’ low transparency, all accumulate and burst out in the Umbrella movement and protests took place not only in the heart of Hong Kong but any spot that disagreement grows is a potential site for protest.

Protest has been evolved into various morphology and one significant shift is the target of protest is no longer towards the governments but to the group of people or organizations that cause that “social problems”. This shift is no one to judged but this phenomenon is no doubt out of the frustration to government attitude and capacity to cope with the city, which makes people tend to solve with their own means. So what will be the next generation of protest? The methodology to bridge the political militarized urbanism in Hong Kong and the way to solve it is the creation of the “rebellious landscape”. The major idea is simple, stating that instead of waiting for the government to respond to protest, people actually possess the power and technique to create our own city, on top of the existing city fabric. This rebellious landscape is materialized with bamboo scaffolding structure, not only because of its quickness to assembly, but also its familiarity to Hong Kong as language that is visible everyday. The rebellious landscape allows people to inhabit and to create a new system of living that sublime any existing systems that produce dissent.