Embodied Narratives: Translating Literary Moments into Spatial Experience through Exhibition Design
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Lee, In Kuan
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Gallagher, Sue
Powley, Caroline
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Auckland University of Technology
Abstract
Embodied Narratives asks: How might an experiential embodied engagement with literary works be activated through exhibition design? Positioned as a practice-based inquiry, the project explores exhibition design as a form of spatial narrative, where drawing, making, and material experimentation function as embodied modes of engaging with literature. Rather than treating literary works as content to be represented, the research approaches them as catalysts for spatial imagination, where meaning is generated through an iterative process of interpretation, visualisation, and material translation.
Using the writings of Osamu Dazai as a starting point for spatial design exploration, the project develops a series of spatial responses that emerge through close reading, sketching, modelling, and installation testing. In this process, the act of design becomes a form of embodied interpretation: literary themes of alienation, identity, and emotional instability are not illustrated directly, but are translated into spatial conditions, material tensions, and atmospheric compositions. This establishes a relay between text and space, where the researcher’s engagement with literature is continuously reconfigured through design actions.
While early explorations foregrounded light as a narrative device, the research evolved toward a broader understanding of atmosphere as an experiential condition shaped by the interaction of light, shadow, material, and spatial arrangement. The notion of the ‘moment’, informed by the ephemeral intensity of fireworks, becomes central to the final design approach. Here, spatial experience is constructed not through linear narrative progression but through a concentrated and transient configuration of elements, where emotional and psychological states are activated through immersion, proximity, and sensory encounter.
Through iterative prototyping and reflective making, the research demonstrates that exhibition design can function as a process of activating embodied engagement with literary works. The narrative emerges through into the relationship among body, material, and space. Ultimately, the project proposes that literary experiences can be reconfigured as immersive spatial encounters, enabling new forms of emotional and experiential engagement beyond the written text.