Production of Space
Journal Entry: Week 6
Continuing from last week's reflections on relationality, I've been thinking about how this practice extends into the production of space, which is also the focus of our reading in Urban Theory Lab this week: Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space.
Lefebvre makes a compelling case that the kind of theory we need today must be unitary, embodied, triadic—a theory that fully grasps what it means to hold one’s ground, to be present in the continuous process of spatial production. He introduces the Time–Space–Energy framework, challenging the idea of space as a static thing or neutral medium. Instead, space is something dynamic—much like fluid dynamics.
We are not just talking about locations; we’re talking about energy flows: the movements, rhythms, pulses, and waves that live vividly inside a space. Space exists, produces, and represents all at once, through every interaction that takes place within it.
As I write, I keep circling back to the idea of groundedness—a concept that arises both in the Presence–Connect–Play framework and in Indigenous ways of being. Groundedness is not merely a physical connection to land; it is about attunement to where you are right now. It is about anchoring yourself in the timely, in the present, in your being.
One might ask: How do we find liberation if we tether ourselves to the ground? Isn’t grounding a form of limitation?
But I would argue the opposite: true connection requires presence—in all its honesty, its innocence, its cruelty.
To be grounded is to be open. To be visible. To be here and there, without pretension or judgment.
In connection, we do not perform. We do not analyze. We listen radically. We acknowledge mutually.
This mutual acknowledgment becomes our foundation—our ground. And it is from here, and only from here, that real play emerges.
If connection allows a socially constructed space to form, then play is how energy flows through it.
Play is hydrodynamic. It moves in waves: sometimes predictable, sometimes surprising, always shaped by its context.
A collective liberation is never careless—it is not play without awareness.
On the contrary, it is play that responds deeply to the world around it. Play is dialogical. It listens, adjusts, improvises.
How can we even play without something or someone to play with or off of?
Play must be relational: between you and an object, you and a person, you and the ground, you and the music.
Even when we “play alone,” if we zoom in closely—what’s really happening? Are you playing with your thoughts? Your emotions?
Does one part of your body play with another?
Even in solitude, play is a negotiation—a movement between parts of self, between context and consciousness.
Always relational. Always dynamic. Always grounded.
