FAIRY TALES 2015: 5 HONOURABLE MENTIONS [1/2]

The results of the Fairy Tales 2015 competition were made public recently, a contest that encourages storytelling through architecture. We presented the first prizes, here we bring you some of the honourable mentions [1/2].

The entries are sorted in no particular criteria, it does not represent any order of results. All of them are accompanied with the first part of the text that each participant had to present, in both English and translated to Spanish.

First part of the story of each participant.-

• “The Museum of Lost Volumes” by Neyran Turan, Melis Ugurlu, and Anastasia Yee.-

Once upon time in the Zero-carbon Hedonistic Era, the entire world was finally sustainable. Clean-energy technologies were abundant and ubiquitous. Large quantity of energy-efficient light bulbs, wind turbines, electric car batteries and solar panels would come with a price, however. Since all of these clean-energy technologies relied on Rare Earths, a group of seventeen chemical elements and their abundant extraction from the earth’s surface, significant worldwide increase in their demand led to the scarcity of these minerals. Nearly all of the Rare Earths were discovered in the 19th century but their use mostly proliferated in the Zero-carbon Hedonistic Era because of their association with green technologies. Not alarmed by the possible tragic outcomes of the further mining of these minerals, the world celebrated their delirious consumption with more car batteries and solar panels until very little of these minerals were available. Soon after the depletion of this precious resource was officially announced, in an attempt to prevent major geopolitical conflicts, United Council of Rare Earths was established to promote international co-operation regarding this matter.

[.../...]

• “Despina: The City & Desire” by Víctor Díaz, Alberto Costa, Carlos Piñar, Rafael Velázquez, and Monserrat León.-

- ...It is like a reward after thirteen days walking. Thirteen days were over and still nothing. Wherever I looked, I barely saw the intense glow over the sea of dunes which extended around me. Behind me, our footprints were lost in the ripples of the desert. On the track, the sand had stuck to my skin, my clothes. The few drops of water left in the saddlebags and canteens were nothing but mud. I remember vividly how the dry air opened my throat with every breath. God, the thirst.

[.../...]

• “The Doomers' Ball” by STASUS - James A. Craig & Matt Ozga-Lawn.-

There was a group named the Doomers. The Doomers believed in the inevitability of environmental collapse, and on witnessing humanity’s unceasing efforts toward its destruction, came to believe that we were powerlessness to escape our fate, entwined as it is with that of the environment’s own. When the environment collapses, the Doomers said, so shall civilisation. Their response in the face of apocalypse they faced was to ignore civilisation to death: to prepare (for want of a better term) their families and communities for the imminent fall of civilisation; to survive in remote settlements; to live apart in isolation.

[.../...]

• “What About Sleeping Beauty” by Hugo Reichmann.-

He came to pick me up morning of my sixteenth. He told me I should go to Coimbatore. The rumour had lasted too long, everyone talked about it; it was the only place to work. The only way to check it was to sink in. I had to for my parents and for my sisters, who were all gone too early. For this society who doesn’t like girls... We are all curses.  My name is Aruna and I made a promise to do my best. It is my duty to get married. I have nothing more important to do in my countryside. Judged by my neighbourhood, I hang up to this expensive dream because I have nothing more. For my father, nothing would cost as much as selling his land. Cotton was his life. Once I get there, I will have to do the best I can. I will be precise and quick in the fabrics manufacture, as my mother had taught me. So only then, I will regain my composure.

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• “The Invisible Apple” by Zigeng Wang and Tanli Liu.-

I am a security guard in the Apple Store on the ground floor of the Empire State Building. The store usually closes at 10:00 p.m. When the customers are cleared and the store is about to close, I always hear loud noises as if the place is still crowded with people. All the screaming, crying, and quarreling caused me to question my own hearing. I thought I had intermittent auditory hallucinations, but after a thorough checkup at a hospital, my hearing was just as normal as anyone else’s. Since the first day I came here, I have been suffering from these noises, which only occur at closing time, and I fear this moment very much. One day I was locked in the store by accident, and those noises came again. I noticed that they came from below the escalator. This is the emergency escalator and is usually locked. Curiosity drove me to push the button, and surprisingly, it opened. I stepped in without realizing it, and felt myself being led to another world.

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