"Where Surfaces Breathe, and Echoes Linger" investigates the entangled histories of Parisian porcelain and American vernacular architecture, exploring how ornament operates as both surface and sign. Drawing connections between French chinoiserie and keloiding, the project examines how decorative aesthetics shape racialized perceptions of beauty. Linking architectural fantasies of chinoiserie to contemporary ideals like “glass skin,” it questions how purity, transparency, and fragility manifest across bodies and buildings. Research at sites like Sèvres and Limoges supports a critical inquiry into ornament as geopolitical language—reimagining surface not as mere embellishment, but as a framework of monstrous beauty that contends with encoded memory, violence, and the act of repair across bodies and material histories.
