Text by: movies in wonderland, Ella Raidel, Daisy Ziyan Zhang
Part of the MIT Fall 2025 Architecture Lecture Series. Presented with the Architecture and Urbanism Group
How do we live with the buildings, neighborhoods, and cities that surround us—and how do they, in turn, shape us? This evening brings together acclaimed filmmakers Daisy Ziyan Zhang (MIT M.Arch ’23) and Ella Raidel (Assistant Professor, NTU Singapore) in a program curated by Marlene Rutzendorfer (wonderland architecture). Through three films, we will explore the intimacy of care and the fragility of structures—both physical and social—in a world of constant transformation. From the aging of a mundane residential building in Mexico, to the eclipsed stories of migrant women navigating foreign landscapes, to the ghostly remains of speculative urbanisation in China, these works invite us to rethink how cities are built, maintained, challenged, remembered, and imagined. The film screening wasfollowed by a conversation with the audience, hosted by J. Yolande Daniels, Associate Professor, Director, Architecture and Urbanism, MIT.
The MIT screening event was supported by NTU Global Research Excellence Award for Travel (GREAT). A collaboration of MIT with wonderland – platform for european architecture.
Wrinkles, MEX 2023, 10:00 min, OV with English subtitles, Dir: Daisy Ziyan Zhang
Rooted in an anonymous residential building in Mexico with a history of over 70 years, this film borrows “wrinkles” as a conceptual thread to investigate the aging of architecture. Dancing between observation and imagination, between matters and actions, it traces the collective authorship of caretaking with 3D scans, and composes an alternative literacy that breaks the binary of before/after in architecture design. This film is part of an ongoing research built upon Daisy’s M.Arch Thesis at MIT.
She crossed, USA 2024, 20:00 min, OV with English subtitles, Dir: Daisy Ziyan Zhang
Situated in between the poetry and politics of the everyday, this documentary film grows from the body as a site – one that’s physical, sensual, adaptive; one that’s in action, in relationship, and in resistance. Through intertwined stories of two itinerant women crossing various boundaries on a foreign land – a cleaner and a student – it examines how our built environment is shaped by overlooked forces and unspoken stories, and so are ourselves.
A Pile of Ghosts, A/SG 2021, 70:00 min, OV with English subtitles, Dir: Ella Raidel
Set in contemporary China, A Pile of Ghosts blurs documentary and fiction, following construction workers, real estate agents, and investors as they navigate real environments, casting calls, and shifting roles.
