Drawing the Line

Abstract

Despite its elemental definition in geometry, the line’s highly potent and divisive nature is especially evident when power, politics, and identity collide. This article discusses, through a firsthand account, the five-day tug-of-war at the Chinese University of Hong Kong during the 2019 social unrest in the city. It reflects on how students and protestors attempted to hold and reinterpret the line that demarcates the city from the university—not only a physical and administrative threshold but an ideological one—and how that learning shifted from the studio and classroom to the physical space of the campus and street.