WHEREABOUTS

Sean Yuxiang Li/  in English
Søren Li / på dansk
李宇翔/  中文

Sean s work investigates the cultural role and meaning of (pre)informal architecture and alternative urban history, with a particular focus on the (dis)entanglement of alternative urban spaces, androgynous spatiality, and diasporic domesticity. They want to rethink how we can understand and engage with inherited urban landscapes by exploring historical spatial practices that embody unthinkable yet lived contradictions. Sean’s research also probes the (non)spatial toolkits that make such contradictions intelligible and grievable, while preserving the right to opacity.

Sean is an architect, artist, and research assistant at the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with the Museum of Copenhagen, have lectured at ETH, the University of Copenhagen, The Royal Danish Academy, and the Copenhagen Architecture Festival.. Sean’s ongoing involvement with NGOs and volunteer organizations further demonstrates their commitment to bridging critical scholarship and hands-on community engagement

architecture disobeys.


 +45 91191535
yuxiangli@ign.ku.dk
yli@arkitekterudengraenser.dk
liyuxiangsean@gmail.com
https://www.instagram.com/seanandxiang/









            

WORKS

^{architecture/ art/ exhibitions}



01. On Squatting as a Spatial Practice.

02. The Habitatory

03. Clan. Community. Countryside

04. Dense yet Sparse

05. Authoritarian Boundaries, Fake Ones

06. Playable, Watchable, Walkable

07. Everyday Monumentality
 

 
"Dubious Architecture", P-L-A-T-F-O-R-M.DK.
Online in August 2024, on- site in January 2025. Copenhagen.

 "Byen i Dig" (City in You), PROSPEKT SPACE, Copenhagen, September.

 "Om at Organisere Arkitektur" (On Organizing Architecture),
WORKS+WORDS, Rundetaarn, Copenhagen, December.

WORDS

^{publications/ research}



 "Nighttime, Discreet Time, Not-so-proud Time, On
queering as an art of noticing"
International Night Studies Conference (ICNS)  2024

"Diasporic Domesticity: Three Asian Brides Named May"
Edinburgh Architecture Research Journal

 " Androgynous Spatiality Through Urban Squatting."  European Architectural History Network (EAHN) 2024

 "Unveiling Transformative Urban Dynamics: The Symbiosis of Squatting Movement and Urban Renewal in Copenhagen's Architectural Landscape."
the European Association for Architectural Education and the Architectural Research Centres Consortium（EAAE and ARCC） 2024

"Stop Painting, Stop Building."
Magasin for Bygningskunst og Kultur 7. (Magazine for Architecture and Culture) April

"Building Space of Appearance Together- On Squatting
as Spatial Practices." 
Magasin for Bygningskunst og Kultur 5. March

"FREJA - Socratic Yet Hedonistic."
 Magasin for Bygningskunst og Kultur 4. October

"Grass, Soil, Teahouse, A Romanticised Sustainability." KÅRK: Kaark_Magasin no. 41. July

"The True Void."
KÅRK: Kaark_Magasin no. 40.

WORLD-MAKING

^{volunteering / teaching / affiliating}



Key member, the Diversity & Equality Platform, Akademisk Arkitektforening / the Danish Association of Architects

Key member, Architects without Borders Denmark

Volunteer for Caritas Retshjælp

Volunteer for  Bridge to China Charitable Foundation (HK)

Volunteer for  the Shanshui Conservation Centre

Volunteer for teaching in the poverty-stricken areas in China with Hongtu Aid Education Association

Lecturer in Material and Artful Approaches (Advanced Migration Studies Program), SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen

Keynote for the seminar at CIRCLES@, University of Copenhagen,

Keynote for "Building Diversity Sharing," by Building Diversity

Keynote for "Queering Space, Queering as an Art of Noticing," Copenhagen Architecture Festival X Film Mosaic, 

Keynote "On Squatting as an Alternative Urban History" for Fællesskaber I Forandring – En aftenskole at Kapelvej 44.

Host for "Local and International Perspectives in the
World Capital of Architecture," with UIA (International Union of  Architects) &Akademisk Arkitektforening (the Danish Association of  Architects), at the World Congress of Architects, 

"The Unique Case of Urban Renewal in Copenhagen," podcast episode in collaboration with Niels Bjørn and Københavns Kommune

Friktion 3 - Dubious architecture

'Pigens år' - Spacegirls, 2024
Tekst ‘I have too many opinions’ af Sean Yuxiang Li, 2024
Kurateret af Sofie Højgaar
https://www.p-l-a-t-f-o-r-m.dk/articles/friktion-3---spacegirls-sean-li-yuxiang

*
I have too many opinions, i have always been the one who has too many opinions, and those opinions are always of course, emotional, thus irrational, thus personal, thus unprofessional.
Thus I should zip my mouth, like my ma always reminds me, don't embarrass her,
Thus I should forget about it like my bestie warned me, big brother is watching, don't put us in danger.
Thus I should keep my feelings myself, as my architecture professor reminds me, don't make him uncomfortable,
thus I should find empirical material to support my feelings otherwise consider removing this feeling, as my editor suggested to me, don't shame academia.

They are protecting me, they are protecting me from becoming me, they are protecting me from me, they are protecting themselves from me, from opinions, from emotions, from irrationality, from themselves.

I trust them, and my brain trusts them, but my body says the opposite, they are dubious, I don’t trust my body, I shouldn’t trust my body.
Nevertheless, they are dubious, one of my too many opinions, of course.

*
I am recovering from my relationship with architecture.
I feel less sexually aroused by the grand master's masterpiece, and I relate more to the interns and less to the master architects; more to the birds hitting the glass and less to the detail of glass; more to the nature erased by building less to the nature designed on top of the buildings. More to the homeless, less to the home; more to the public life, less to the public space, more to messy, less to hygienic.
I am not ashamed of my ancestor’s wood temple is not firmitas enough anymore, ornaments are not sissy, and dishonest, and architecture without architects is people s life than architects’ fetish.

I am giving up catching up with mastering skills on 10 different rendering modelling programmes; I spend less time with architecture; I am unbecoming the architect that I dreamed of, I am unbecoming the architect that I am scared of.
I am unbecoming.

Sounds like a breakup, but no, I am not done with architecture.

I wrote for the magazine during the day, stop building!
I wrote to apply for a job in the offices during the night, together we build!

It is a minor feeling, ugly feeling, paradox feeling, non-cathartic feeling, ambivalent or even explicitly contradictory feeling. (Ngai 2004)

Kind of like every time we cheer on a Thursday evening, we announce, I need a hero but I hate the man, I love cocks but I can't stand the man.

Sounds like I finally cured my homosexuality, but no, I am not done with man.

But no, I am not done with architecture.

Man, architecture is dubious, one of my too many opinions, of course.


*
Am I naturally dubious, or is it they, man, and architecture that embody dubiousness?

Since I have been apologising and taking the blame and ignoring my feelings and body for so long, excuse me, I am tired of taking the blame.

So, I am whining, gossiping, spellcasting, saying, announcing, declaring, defining,

Dubious architecture, Dubious architecture, Dubious architecture, man, they.

So, in order for you, my dearest friends, to sense and disarm,

I am making Sense of "Dubious" for you,

Dubious as a feeling embodies continuous doubt and scepticism.
It doesn't resolve into clear actions or solutions but remains a nagging, unresolved tension within one's interactions or perceptions.

Dubious as a Relational and Resistance Concept,
It shades relationships between things rather than just casting judgment. Calling architecture dubious, is acting as a minimal unit of resistance for those in precarious or marginalised positions.

Dubious is a feeling that leans towards walking sideways, giving side glances.
 To call someone or something dubious is the first step in shifting them from the subject to the object, allowing us, who have long been the object, to finally take the position of the subject.

*
"A well-off, well-educated young architecture professional earns less than a high school graduate working as a piccolo." (Furu 2020)

My teacher at the architecture school at the Royal Danish Academy has a superpower, he can read people's names and guess whether they are architects or not. I admired that superpower and read it as a dedication to the profession.
He said:” The trick is their family name and you know, it's a small community.”

I used to date far-right Danish people for fun and validation, one date told me, that the government should cut funding for architecture schools because it's only open to rich people.

I was hospitalised in Copenhagen for weeks, and my ward neighbour heard I was studying to be an architect. He and his wife told me it is a disgrace that your architect is making social housing into weird cock-shaped unaffordable housing.
I told them my friend works at that architecture firm as an intern, working at least ten hours a day, and needs to ask for help from her parents.
“That's karma,” said the wife

What is this karma about, why there is a karma?

Jokes, tricks, gossip, pillow talks, anecdotes, rumours, magics, journalism, they fly, infiltrate, contaminate, congregate, foment, ferment,
Into my body, into my feeling, into their body, into their feeling,
Inside wards, bedrooms, classrooms, workspaces,  
In arriving architecture.
Architecture is becoming a dubious profession, a precarious balance between labour exploitation, elitist education, and restrictive gatekeeping.

Here is another opinion of mine, my theory of karma.

After battling fierce competition and expensive preschool to enter the School of Architecture, students spend years mastering a vast array of technical skills: Revit, Rhino, ArchiCAD, CAD, Photoshop, Illustrator, SketchUp, Vary, InDesign, Grasshopper, ENSCAPE, and even coding, materials, laws, and structures. They’re expected to survive in a tough job market while also mastering the softer skills of the trade: making mock-ups, sketching, hand-drawing, critiquing neoliberalism, casually referencing Foucault and Deleuze in a Friday bar, and catching up with the literature and art movies,  and adopting an academic disdain for BIG's practices—all to fit the mould of elite architectural education.

Upon graduation, even those who meet these demanding criteria, find themselves earning wages comparable to high school graduates—if they’re lucky and good enough to gain experience at all.

This leads to a troubling conclusion, karma: the treatment of young architecture professionals is not a mere byproduct of the system but a deliberate mechanism within it. The so-called love and dedication to architecture, cultivated by elitist education, serves as the perfect tool for capitalism to exploit labour. Meanwhile, capital controls access to the profession, ensuring that only those with sufficient resources—often from affluent backgrounds—can survive and thrive. In this way, architecture becomes a gatekeeper, perpetuating a cycle of exclusivity and elitism that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

"The house is a machine for living in," cursed by the grand master, Le Corbusier, yet today’s architectural practices suggest that the architecture profession is more a machine for capitalizing on labour, architects work like a machine.

Machine produce products,

A cog in a system designed to maximize profit at the expense of the human spirit. The products that emerge from this process are less about innovation and more about perpetuating the status quo—a reflection of the mechanized, exploitative nature of the industry itself.

The profession becomes what it practices.

Karma after karma, machine reproduces machine.

“Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.” Leonardo da Vinci, great grand master's prophecy.

I touch machines, cuddle machines, kiss machines, smell products, taste products, and humanized products.

I feel nothing, the body of architecture, excludes bodies, but machines.

Giving side eyes telegraphs doubt, suspicion, and even contempt. (Hong 2020)

Dubious architecture, I knew it.

I give my side eyes.


 * Dubious architecture, Dubious architecture, Dubious architecture

Q: Could the architecture extend beyond merely constructing buildings?
A: “Architecture doesn’t mean only to create buildings in the public space but also to create debate in public space, through building and/or attitudes able to make a building.” — @François Roche (Budor 2017)

Q: Can architecture be reimagined rather than just an industry focused on building?
A: “Architecture is no longer understood as a practice that inevitably brings about the construction of an artifact but as a way of thinking, observing, and analyzing the present and the society in which we operate.” — @Giovanna Borasi (CCA, n.d.)

Q: Is it possible for the discipline of architecture to be enriched by embracing a wider range of artistic choices beyond object form?
A: “To do anything beyond object form is often treated as extra-disciplinary. However, aesthetic pleasure can come from doing something else, and this choice should not be denied.” — @Keller Easterling (Stein 2015)

Q: Is the notion of ‘political architecture’ merely an idealistic concept?
A: “To make political architecture is to do politically political architecture.” — @Jean-Luc Godard

Q: Could architecture resist the constraints of typified examples?
A: “The queer world is characterized as a space of entrances, exits, unsystematized lines of acquaintance, projected horizons, alternate routes, blockages, and incommensurate geographies.” — @Lauren Berlant (Berlant and Warner 1998)

Q: Might buildings serve as tools for controlling urban memory?
A: “The city claims an authority over its territory, constructing limits, exclusions, and silences, but also possibilities.” — @Samuel Burgum (Burgum 2022)

Q: Could architecture be migrant and unfixed?
A: “The intra-activity of connected timeframes, across territories through which architectures are negotiated, is itself migrant.” — @Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi and Rachel Lee (2022)

Q: Could architecture that prioritizes profit over people be inherently short-lived, with its value dying alongside exploited labour?
A: “Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.” — @Leonardo da Vinci

Q: Is it possible that architects overestimate their privilege, leading them to overlook their own labor struggles?
A: “Most architects are workers, whether they identify with the label or not.” — @Phineas Harper (Harper 2024)

Q: Is it possible that modern architecture perpetuates the commodification and exploitation of both nature and human labor?
A: “The scientific revolution transformed nature from terra mater into a machine and a source of raw material, removing ethical and cognitive constraints against its violation an exploitation.”—@Mies,M.&Shiva(Sollund2015)

Q: Form follows?
A: “Form Follows Love.” — @Anna Heringer

We are not alone.
Let me begin again,
I am writing this to me, you, we, my ma, my teacher, my architecture school, my future employee, my friends, my editor, My hierarchical, patriarchal architecture, my colonizer from the past life to today, my dictator from the past life to today, the sprite haute me from the east to west， my common sense, my saver capitalism, my grand masters, my star architects,

  I'll huff
  and I'll puff
  and I'll blow your house down.

A spectre is haunting.


Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi and Rachel Lee. 2022. ‘On Collaborations: Feminist Architectural Histories of Migration’. Aggregate. https://doi.org/10.53965/mdcb1441.
Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. 1998. ‘Sex in Public’. Critical Inquiry 24 (2): 547–66.
Borasi, Giovanna. 2015. ‘The Other Architect: Another Way of Building Architecture, by Giovanna Borasi’, 2015. https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/articles/issues/20/the-other-architect/50960/another-way-of-building-architecture.
Budor, Dora. 2017. ‘Architectural Psychoscapes: Francois Roche — Mousse Magazine and Publishing’, 21 July 2017, sec. Conversations. https://www.moussemagazine.it/magazine/architectural-psychoscapes-francois-roche-2017.
Burgum, Samuel. 2022. ‘This City Is An Archive: Squatting History and Urban Authority’. Journal of Urban History 48 (3): 504–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144220955165.
Furu, Sonja. 2020. ‘Den underbetalte elite’. www.weekendavisen.dk. 22 December 2020. http://www.weekendavisen.dk/content/item/33436.
Harper, Phineas. 2024. ‘Why Do so Many Architects Think They Are More Privileged than They Really Are?’ Dezeen, 8 May 2024, sec. Architecture. https://www.dezeen.com/2024/05/08/architects-unions-phineas-harper-opinion/.
Herrero Lopéz, Yayo. 2010. ‘Ecofeminismo, una propuesta para repensar el presente y transitar al futuro.’ Socioeco.org. 2010. https://www.socioeco.org/bdf_fiche-document-8740_es.html.
Hong, Cathy Park. 2020. Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52845775-minor-feelings.
Ngai, Sianne. 2004. Ugly Feelings. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Sollund, Ragnhild. 2015. Review of Review of Ecofeminism, by M. Mies and V. Shiva. State Crime Journal 4 (1): 99–103. https://doi.org/10.13169/statecrime.4.1.0099.
Stein, Amelia. 2015. ‘Keller Easterling: Playing Spaces’, 15 May 2015. https://www.guernicamag.com/playing-spaces/

    

On squatting as a spatial practice
Building Space of Appearance together

       

   

   

HABITAT- FACTORY

CLAN, COMMUNITY, COUNTRYSIDE

DENSE YET SPARSE

                                             

AUTHORITARIAN BOUNDARIES, A FAKE ONE

PLAYABLE, WATCHABLE, WALKABLE

EVERYDAY MONUMENTALITY

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔

SEAN & YUXIANG & SOREN & 李宇翔