Khensani De Klerk - Podcast Details

Shows

Landscape Architecture PodcastDr. Ghazal Jafari, Ana María Durán Calisto, and Khensani De KlerkCRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SPATIAL PRACTICE LABASH 2021 - SUNDAY, APRIL 11th Tonight’s session will begin with three, 10-minute presentations from our panelists: the first by, Dr. Ghazal Jafari, founding director of OPEN SYSTEMS / Landscape Infrastructure Lab, and currently an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at University of Virginia; next, a presentation from Khensani de Klerk, an architectural designer and planner from Johannseburg, and co-founder and director of Matri-Archi(tecture); and lastly, a presentation by Ana María Durán Calisto, co-founder of Estudio A0, a lecturer at Yale University Architecture, and doctoral candidate at UCLA. These...2021-04-181h 04

KONTEXT.Ep10: Cape Town with Khensani de Klerk and Maxwell MutandaIn this special episode, pluri-disciplinary artist and architect Maxwell Mutanda and I get into conversation about Cape Town, and my current research focus around notions of Safe Space? Usually I speak to people about their contexts of interest, whereas in episode 10, the microphone flips with Maxwell spearheading the conversation and asking the questions. As African spatial practitioners concerned with Africa, we discuss the double conscious state of being in institutions outside of the continent and what the implications of our efforts in these Global Northern spaces might be. Maxwell, who is currently pursuing an MSc in Sustainable Urban Development at...2020-10-1940 min

KONTEXT.Ep9: Gurgaon with Joseph MarchbankAs we begin to slowly approach the end of the season, I am in conversation with Joseph Marchbank who is currently a post-graduate researcher in Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge exploring IKEA’s expansion into Indian Cities on an urban and domestic scale. We explore urban and residential forms, along with the socio-economic implications of IKEA’s retail presence in India. A very interested conversation, with many mutli-geographic conceptions of home, leisure and labour across different value systems. Join in on our conversation! For more on Gurgaon and Joseph Marchbank check Instagram handle: @joemarchbank_cdrs If you...2020-10-1224 min

KONTEXT.Ep8: Old Oak Common with James SmithWhat an interesting episode this was with James Smith, who is currently a post-graduate researcher in Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge interested in housing, capital, equality and transport. James takes us through the development dilemmas and opportunities in Old Oak Common, west of London. We explore themes capital and stakeholder relationships at an urban scale, and zoom into the social implications these forces have on mixed income housing residents at an architectural scale. Join in on the conversation! For more on Old Oak Common and James Smith check Instagram handle: @valuesofland If you have any comments...2020-10-0523 min

KONTEXT.Ep7: New Chum Beach with Charlotte AireyThis episode I am in conversation with post-graduate researcher in Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge, Charlotte Airey. Researching and discussing a place familiar to her, Charlotte takes us through New Chum Beach in New Zealand. Through her lens of “People and Land” we explore themes of well-being, preservation, capitalism and its manifestations in the ecological landscape of New Chum Beach. Join our conversation and journey briefly to New Zealand. For more on New Chum Beach and Charlotte Airey check Instagram handle: @airey_design_research If you have any comments or are interested in getting involved in KONT...2020-09-2828 min

KONTEXT.Ep6: Singapore with Chelsea SiaIn episode 6 of KONTEXT, I am in conversation with Chelsea Sia. We speak across Cambridge and Singapore about Chelsea’s lens of ‘Quotidian life and its Value’ in a place with a strikingly decreasing deathscape. Chelsea is also an Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge, and takes us through her specific site of research in Bhukit Brown, the last existing graveyard in Singapore. A detailed episode exploring themes of landscape, death space, zoning and urban development in the trajectory of newness, emblematic of Singapore. For more on Singapore and Chelsea Sia check the instagram handle: @ploopypoopy If you ha...2020-09-2127 min

KONTEXT.Ep5: Shenzhen with Elliot ZhouWe’re half way through the season! In episode five of KONTEXT, I am in conversation with Elliot Zhou, who is a post-graduate researcher in Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge. We look at Urban Villages in Shenzen and through Elliot’s lens, dig into ‘Cultural Production at Precarious Space’. A short yet rich episode exploring themes of zoning, urban development and some critique of how art and architecture Biennales approach exhibition. For more on Shenzen and Elliot Zhou check the instagram handle: @zheng_design_research If you have any comments or are interested in getting involved in KONTE...2020-09-1421 min

KONTEXT.Ep4: Croydon with Irene CarlucciThis episode I am in conversation with post-graduate researcher in Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge, Irene Carlucci. Living in and researching Croydon, with a layered and underlying Italian-influenced approach to urban design and architecture, Irene speaks through her lens of “Psychology and the City” as we explore themes of capitalism, community and public life. Join our conversation for a peak into the south of London-located town of Croydon (which is also home to Stormzy and Kate Moss btw); a place layered with narratives of consumption and development. For more on Croydon and Irene Carlucci check the inst...2020-09-0728 min

KONTEXT.Ep3: Hong Kong with Jefferson ChanIn episode three of KONTEXT, I am in conversation with Jefferson Chan, who is a post-graduate researcher in Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge. Through Jefferson’s lens, we look at Hong Kong New Towns in the ‘Post-Colonial’ Era. Exploring themes of communities in scale shifting infrastructures and conditions, we learn about the making of spaces and various stakeholders involved. For more on Hong Kong New Towns and Jefferson Chan check the instagram handle: @jeffersonchan_cdrs If you have any comments or are interested in getting involved in KONTEXT, visit: https://khensanideklerk.com/KONTEXT 2020-08-3126 min

KONTEXT.Ep 2: Winchester with Stephen SmithThis episode I am in conversation with post-graduate researcher in Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge, Stephen Smith. We look at Winchester in the UK, through Stephen’s lens of “Heritage in the Cityscape and the Heart”. Exploring themes of nostalgia, sentiment, heritage, memory and tourism - join our conversation on Winchester. For more on Winchester and Stephen Smith, check the instagram handle: @sgsmith_architecture If you have any comments or are interested in getting involved in KONTEXT, visit: https://khensanideklerk.com/KONTEXT 2020-08-2424 min

KONTEXT.Ep 1: Limehouse with Shirley LoTo kick off KONTEXT, I will be in conversation with Shirley Lo, a post-graduate researcher in Architecture and Urban Design at The University of Cambridge. Shirley, like the other guests in season one, are all currently researching different places in the Cambridge Design Research Studio. This episode we discuss Limehouse in London through Shirley’s lens “Real vs Fictional Space”. For more on Limehouse and Shirley Lo, an instagram handle: @strangenessinlimehouse If you have any comments or are interested in getting involved in KONTEXT, contact khensanideklerk-work@gmail.com 2020-08-1718 min

KONTEXT.Ep 0: Season one trailer! Welcome to KONTEXTIn season one I will be in conversation with 10 guests currently researching different location in the Cambridge Design Research Studio at The University of Cambridge. These episodes were all recorded during the initial first wave lockdowns of the corona virus pandemic. I say this both as an audio quality disclaimer, and also to mention that this season came in response to wanting to equally learn about other places, from a position of geographic constraint. This podcast project is independent of the university itself. Welcome to KONTEXT. Lets explore together.2020-08-1101 min

Beautiful newsBeautiful NewsGuest : Khensani De KlerkIt’s been 25 years since South Africa’s first democratic election. Legally, we have thefreedom to live wherever we choose. But the scars of the Group Areas Act are slow torecover. From the tin structures in Gugulethu to the mansions in Umhlanga,communities are still segregated by class and colour. Together with a friend KhensaniDe Klerk founded Matri-Archi(tecture), a collective rethinking the structure of our cities.The team consists of 12 talented individuals, from researchers and designers tofilmmakers and a lawyer. Together, they prom...2019-05-0115 min

Beautiful newsBeautiful NewsGuests : Khulile Vilakazi-Ofosu“Mommy, please make my hair flowy.” The question startled Khulile Vilakazi-Ofosu.She’d only ever seen her daughter’s afro as beautiful and couldn’t understand why she’dwant to change. Until Vilakazi-Ofosu took a closer look at her daughter’s dolls withsleek blonde manes – none of them reflected children of colour.Vilakazi-Ofosu knew the impact of hair on self-confidence, having worked with CarolineHlahla to manufacture natural textured hair extensions. Their experience inspired theduo to create the Sibahle Collection – a range of dolls with natural hair. Each aspect o...2019-04-2907 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)PAAP: The Poetics of Sun Ra - A Joyful NoiseThis MA Peeling Away at Patriarchy features outer world musician Sun Ra and his timeless introduction and teachings on Afro-futurism as a space that transcends conventions, which he did through his music. In honour of Sun Ra and in his own words, before we begin “The first thing to do is to consider time officially ended…” Sun Ra offered an escape for Black people in pain, all over the world. This escape was more than just a sonic distraction - it was a healing, an injection of vibrations from another realm to wake Black people up to their true fates. Sun Ra...2019-04-2100 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)Peeling Away at Patriarchy: Prof Mahmood Mamdani on Scholarship as ActivismWelcome to our Peeling Away at Patriarchy series, which seeks to contribute to the equality that feminism stands for by letting you know compadres and allies in privilege positions who are contributing to transformation and intersectionality in spatial discourse. We obviously aim at making the spatial links, revealing and sharing discourse so that the development of our situated knowledges can take effect in the spatial form. To inaugurate our Peeling Away at Patriarchy (PAAP) we are featuring Professor Mahmood Mamdani. An inspirational Ugandan academic, author and critic whose thinking speaks to the intersection between politics and culture with critical explorations...2019-04-2100 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)On Beauty and Terror Part 2: Social Life as Science FictionAlthough our existence is shaped by this violence (of coloniality, of patriarchy, the violent normalisation of heterosexuality (heteronormativity), the rule of capital), we also exist outside of this; we are not only oppressed beings, our resilience and agency cannot be silenced, that is a further source of dispossession. Once again, we are ‘reckoning with the artistic expressions of the marginalised’ (McCarthy), we are looking at doing what Saidiya Hartman does when she, ‘[makes] productive sense of the gaps and silences in the archive of trans-Atlantic slavery that absent the voices of enslaved women’. While the idea of our beings exists in this...2019-04-2100 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)On Beauty and Terror Part 1: The Black Outdoors‘Anybody who thinks that they can understand how terrible the terror has been, without understanding how beautiful the beauty has been against the grain of the terror, is wrong.’ -Fred Moten (2014), The Black Outdoors. This MA episode is part 2 of a two piece article which features a talk between two scholars. As an extension of Part 1, Fred Moten, ‘in his work he has consistently argued that any theory of politics, ethics, or aesthetics must begin by reckoning with the creative expressions of the oppressed’ (McCarthy, 2018). Saidiya Hartman, has written about feeling the continual legacy of slavery and ‘[making] productive sense of the gaps...2019-04-2100 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)Everything Is EverythingThis MA episode explores interconnectedness and features as a Fruit of the Week article on our website. This episode shares the personal experiences of moving through the city through the lenses of Lehlohonolo and Neo in response to Lauren Hill’s Everything is Everything song. Describing the textures and sounds of Cape Town city, this episode is an intimate commentary on the network and emotional experience, the intangibility that gives a city its sense of place and zeitgeist. This episode serves as a detailed description of the place that Cape Town is in politically, socially and segregated 2018- yet with an...2019-04-2100 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)Moving Through Places, Space and TimeThis MA episode is written to feature the work of two black queer womxn, as Djs they are interested in, and working on, using music as a political tool. This, while rooting the experience of the music in the feel and language that reveals itself when music is given space to breath by respecting its cultural and social setting. A conversation featuring bell hooks and Cornel West introduced opened the door to Lynnée Denise, a Dj scholar interested in creating sensory experiences rooted in cultural histories of marginalized people. That then opened the next door to a music mix, S...2019-04-2100 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)Expression as Knowledge: Sustaining Cities Through Socio-Spiritual ConstructionThis MA episode is a component of a written article which features a significant amount of images which we encourage you to visit in the original post at www.matri-archi.com for maximum understanding and relating. This episode focuses on the construction of west African city Djenne in Mali. The plastering process of applying mud annually in this comparatively rural city brings together its residents in a spiritual festival to physically participate. This episode speaks about participation, and the importance of treating spiritual activity as an important factor in spatial practice, through Djenne as a current example. The city of...2019-04-2100 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)On Locality | Women Facing PlaceOn locality: Women Facing Place This MA episode is an accompaniment to a greater visual collaborative piece co-created by 4 exceptional women who were travelling and dwelling in new and different cities across the globe. The episode can be found in our Matri-Archive on our website www.matri-archi.com . The series of stories speaks to the various perspectives of (non)locality that each of these women face. New and sometimes familiar place. These women include photographer Amy Braaf, designer and photographer Tshegofatso Mako, economist Gabrielle Cohen and architectural designer Josephine Dalberg. Exploring the choice and agency that urban dwellers have when...2018-09-1500 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)Seapoint NarrativesThis MA episode is accompanied by a photomontage visual that compliments and evokes a greater understanding of the spoken/written content and so we urge you to visit the original post to gain a full understanding of the episode. With great reference to Landscape Architecture Professor Blake Belengar’s Situating Eidetic Photomontage in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, this episode speaks about the potential of using photomontages as a language that can enable maximum access to reading space by people who are not experts in the formal spatial industry. The accompanying image speaks to the political conflict of land tenure and evictions in...2018-09-1500 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)Validation and the VernacularThis MA episode is the 8th in the archive. This episode follows a visual photo series and so we would urge you to visit the original article in order to get a full experience of the theme at hand. The analog photo series was captured by photographer Lehlohonolo Ndlovu who is also part of the MA collective. This episode is directed on the very personal experience of the author having cut all of her hair off as a self-statement reminding her and fellow women of colour around her of the need to unapologetically assert oneself in space in a way...2018-09-1500 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)Transport in Cape Town; Inter-modality = Access | Learning from the Informal Taxi SystemThis MA episode is a sequel to a coproduced short film which features in the original article exploring the experience of different public transport modes in Cape Town- produced by a group of City Planning researchers from the University of Cape Town. The episode essentially speaks to giving a snippet of a more detailed understanding of the complexity of public transport efficiency in Cape Town. At the centre of this is the relationship between Inter-modality and Access. Modal integration is an essential prerequisite for urban accessibility - typically prescribed by the norms of the Global North. And so, in Global...2018-09-1500 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)The Capacity of Critique in a Colonial Validating Knowledge CannonThis MA episode explores themes of audacity, authorship and validation when it comes to engaging in critique and contributing into the the knowledge pool of spatial and architectural literature and content. More specifically, the episode focuses on critique referencing 1960s feminist planner Denis Scott Brown’s writing on Having Words. Echoing Scott-Brown’s identification of the problematics in not just the content of planning and architecture but also and more importantly planning and architectural approaches. In an undeniably tightening global community and increasing boom in ICT technology, how do we evolve our thinking of access to information such that we don’...2018-09-1500 min

Matri-Archi(tecture)Lesley Lokko and Architectural History: White Lies, Black AbsenceThis MA episode was in fact the very first article ever released by Matri-Archi and inspired by architect, writer and critic Professor Lesley Lokko. In response to the political turbulence of decolonial student movements at the University of Cape Town and other institutions across the South African landscape; this episode hones in on the insight of Prof.Lokko when attempting to dissect and absence of African narratives in a predominantly white and Western-centric architectural education. Lesley Lokko has focused her critique around relationships on architecture, globalisation and cultural identity. The episode explores the idea of honing into local archival methods...2018-09-1000 min