Shows
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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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 minMatri-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