Ruokun Ma (Neil) is a Chinese-born visual arts practitioners whose practice explores the relationship between consumer culture, identity, and spatial memory through the use of an institutional visual language. Born in Tianjin and raised in Guangzhou, his work often reconstructs spatial and social conditions through processes of abstraction, translation, and systemization.

Affordable Enclave emerges from Ma’s encounter with Shipai Village in Guangzhou, an urban village located less than two kilometers from the city center. Developed through informal and collective processes, the village grew out of restrictions on land ownership, resulting in a continuous expansion of self-built housing. Buildings extend both vertically and horizontally, producing a highly compressed spatial condition where boundaries between structures are increasingly diminished.

Surrounded by high-rise developments since the 1990s, Shipai Village persists as an enclave shaped by both exclusion and necessity. Its relatively low rental costs—approximately one third of those in surrounding areas—make it a crucial living space for migrant workers, while also positioning it as a marginal yet essential component within the urban economy.

In response, Ma reconstructs this architectural condition using uniform foam core cubes. Less than a third of the material originates from a previous work, forming a cyclical relationship that reflects an ongoing engagement with reconstruction and reuse. Through the reduction of complex structures into modular units, the work removes markers of individuality and habitation, instead emphasizing repetition, density, and spatial tension.

By translating an informal and highly specific urban environment into a standardized sculptural system, Affordable Enclave reflects on how spaces associated with affordability and labor are abstracted, regulated, and reinterpreted within broader narratives of urban development and consumer culture.