This episode features Tuliza Sindi and Miliswa Ndziba from room19isaFactory and Kuukuwa Manful. Colonialism is a very complex and violent power structure that transforms a people’s way of life. We dive into how this impacts the ways in which we design, preserve and build our African built environments.
This episode features Kuukuwa Manful + Tuliza Sindi and Miliswa Ndziba from room19isaFactory.
Kuukuwa Manful is a trained architect and researcher who creates, studies and documents architecture in Africa. She is a visiting post-doctoral scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at the University of Stanford, and a post-doctoral researcher on the African State Architecture Project at SOAS, University of London.
Through her Accra Archive project, she has digitised a collection of endangered historical architectural material pertaining to architecture, construction, and urban regulation in Ghana. She also curates adansisɛm - an architecture collective that documents Ghanaian architecture theory, research and practice, and co-founded and runs sociarchi - a social architectural enterprise that advocates for, and provides architectural services to people who ordinarily cannot afford architects.
room19isaFactory. was founded in 2022 by Tshwanelo Kubayi, Tuki Mbalo, Thandeka Mnguni, Miliswa Ndziba, and their lecturer-turned-colleague, Tuliza Sindi - founder of Unit 19 at the Graduate School of Architecture (GSA). room19isaFactory. is a cross-disciplinary architecture collective that approaches existing spatial philosophies as metaphorical ground conditions that render linear constructions of time (or the Western chronopolitical imagination) tautological. Through culture-making, their practice speculates about liberating those grounds from their chronopolitical captivity.
Music by Is Seven A Gang
Instagram: @aformorenike
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Alisha 0:09
Today we are touching on declining ality and African Metropolis asking how we can build and preserve our African built environment. So we have Kuukuwa Manful Tuliza Sindi and also Miliswa Ndziba and we're going to be talking together about all these different negotiations in place. Kuukuwa Manful is a trained architect and researcher who creates, studies and documents architecture in Africa. She is a visiting post-doctoral scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at the University of Stanford, and a post-doctoral researcher on the African State Architecture Project at SOAS, University of London. Through her Accra Archive project, she has digitised a collection of endangered historical architectural material pertaining to architecture, construction, and urban regulation in Ghana. She also curates adansisɛm - an architecture collective that documents Ghanaian architecture theory, research and practice, and co-founded and runs sociarchi - a social architectural enterprise that advocates for, and provides architectural services to people who ordinarily cannot afford architects. room19isaFactory. was founded in 2022 by Tshwanelo Kubayi, Tuki Mbalo, Thandeka Mnguni, Miliswa Ndziba, and their lecturer-turned-colleague, Tuliza Sindi - founder of Unit 19 at the Graduate School of Architecture (GSA). room19isaFactory. is a cross-disciplinary architecture collective that approaches existing spatial philosophies as metaphorical ground conditions that render linear constructions of time (or the Western chronopolitical imagination) tautological. Through culture-making, their practice speculates about liberating those grounds from their chronopolitical captivity. Some of their works include a comment Greenmount installation as librarians at the bobbin artists and activists Kozani chewy, the library of things we've got to remember in Johannesburg, South Africa, the exhibition will act as their backdrop to host us professor of Humanities and acclaimed author Tina camped. Two of the collective members are currently exhibiting their work and the fadda gallery exhibition entitled, situated making alongside a range of Johannesburg, multidisciplinary practitioners from across several design disciplines. They are also due to feature delegates at the Pratt Institute of architectures HRA conference in New York, USA in mid November. So the subject that we're gonna be talking about is very much going to be touching on colonialism. And it's a very complex violent power structure that transforms people's way of life. Colonialism is also the intention of dominant forces that have conquered fought and brutally dismantled tribes cultures and vital knowledge woven into this is also dispossession, and transfer of economic resources from those who are indigenous aspects such as exploitation, domination, and repression. highlight how unequal our power structures are, and how reliant we can become on these dudes, the extraction of land resources, and even wealth. Colonialism is fundamentally about taking or not trying to understand the power of forging ties respecting those before us and giving back. So my first question to all of you, is there so many spaces in the built and natural environment? Where do you see yourselves and how do you think coloniality and decoloniality has played a role within this?
Kuukuwa Manful 3:37
So I see I see myself as doing a lot of straddling kind of work straddling physical space, but also kind of like metaphysical mental space because like my work is around memory and archiving. And, and preserving and collecting. So some of this is physical is tangible, but also a lot of it is intangible, because sometimes looking at buildings that don't exist anymore, because they've lost to ravages of time, whether they've been demolished or just slowly decomposed over the years. But then also sometimes I'm looking at buildings that actually never existed, but people dreamed of building dreamed of making, because it would reconnect them to a certain point in time that they lost and want to go back for. So yeah, I see myself straddling physical space and metaphysical mental spaces as well in these fields of memory and collective remembering, and preservation.
Tuliza Sindi 4:41
I think I'm reflecting maybe that's why I wanted a bit of time before is funding just to kind of give some context maybe to how I finally feel like I can locate myself in architecture. So I started teaching around the same time that in our context, this context of South Africa, they started the #FeesMustFall movement. So this was by the students. And it started with the students at university in Johannesburg, and it's spread across the country, and then kind of allyship spilled over into different parts of the world in support of our students. And this took place over a couple of years, about two or three years. And so it's incredibly young teacher that was starting out. And also along with #FeesMustFall, which was what started it was the impetus to all the other movements that followed on from it. They they started speaking about "Rhodes Must Fall" which was a challenge to the built environment about how architecture still reflect colonial orders. And then what followed on from that was discussions around coloniality what are what are we teaching our students? And what are we basically founding their understanding of the world upon. And so that gave us great leverage. And you know I started my teaching at the Graduate School of Architecture, so it gave us great leverage to really take on those questions, and to try to make sense of how to forge futures, in relation to the questions of this new generation of practitioners are asking. And so I think, fundamentally, at the moment, we, my spatial practice sits, is within quite an experimental space that works at several scales at once. So it engages ideological constructs in which we build. But on the other end, it also engages the very intimate scale of performance and ritual, and embodiment. And it definitely overlaps with some of the points that Kuukuwa made, in the sense that it was also deals with archive, and memory and so on. But, for instance, how the body remembers, or how it acts as a tool of memory, and how it informs the way that we we locate ourselves in the world, the way that we travel without geography, embedded in the way that we take our geographies with us. So it's been really informed by quite a lot of the turmoil that was present at the time that I started teaching. That was also overlapping with the questions I was asking of architecture anyway. And so it just created a really nice space to, to carve out something in the industry.
Miliswa Ndziba 7:56
I think on my side, you know, just in light of the context that Tuliza has given us, during that #FeesMustFall movement, I was in my third year of my undergraduate degree, and was around that time, and this was at the University of Pretoria and it was around the time that I began to reckon with the fact that it was a institution that didn't have space for the types of questions that I was asking. And so I began to look outside of the University of Pretoria for spaces where I would be able to ask these questions and also have them nurtured. And so I then looked to the Graduate School of Architecture, and end up joining, um, Unit 19, under University of Pretoria supervision. And it was in Unit 19, where I was given the tools and the language for making sense of these questions that I wanted to ask. And so, you know, being a recent graduate, and now, you know, establishing, you know, my ways of practising where I sit now is very much in an exploratory place as well. But also, yeah, in a space of wonderment, where I can't say for sure what it is that I'm doing, but that I'm open to experimenting with these, you know, different ways that I've learned to make.
Alisha 9:31
I think another thing to, I guess highlight in this as well as like, in the context of specifically maybe looking at South Africa, how, yeah, how was it like to teach Tuliza, especially with all these uprisings?
Unknown Speaker 9:47
I think, maybe the GSA might not have experienced as much of the pushback from students because, you know, our fundamental intention was to, to route the syllabi in a notion of transformative therapies where other schools of architecture around the country weren't necessarily overtly pursuing that. Because Leslie Lokko Professor Lokko started the school. And so that was the kind of offering that she proposed as a GSA that that is something we should endeavour. And so I think what we experienced, or at least I'll speak for myself, what I experienced was incredible possibility, and incredible freedom. And I think it was strongly contrasted against in a lot of the other spaces that I was going to because I work as an external examining institution institutions across South Africa. And the the level of freedom that was afforded to students at the GSA was really phenomenal at the time of great upheaval. So I think it was really starting to show, you know, how different the character of the school was
Alisha 11:18
What legacies Kuukuwa are you aiming to build, and how has your cultures influenced the way in which you design and archive and build the typologies of memory?
Unknown Speaker 11:30
So I don't know that I'm trying to build legacies. Or I'm actively trying to do it or consciously trying to do it, because I find that I shy away from from that kind of, of thinking, I'm not fully resolved in where I want to move in that direction yet. There's something just so colonial and I also say patriarchal about how architecture is framed, now, it's about imposing, it's about terraforming, right, like making, making yourself, or making whatever you're building kind of there lasts forever and forever. So the whole world may look upon it and see that greatness, wait, just like on a personal instinct, instinctual level, I just don't really relate to you. So maybe this is a bias of mine. And one thing that I'm really drawn to in like studying and researching histories of pre colonial architectures, and building technology and forms, was that impermanence was built into it. So for instance, like I studied the ancient city of Kumasi, which is much different from what's exists now as a capital of the Ashanti region in Ghana, but this ancient Kumasi if you read kind of white Explorer, or white, white architecture scholar accounts of this space, like they, they talk about the beauty and everything, but then they say, but a lot of it was built in earth, so it doesn't exist anymore. But then I'm studying. And it's kind of like that was the point, because they do have stone. So for instance, there's a kid who was trying to challenge the Queen of England, and he built a stone Palace to show that he could, so this material was available, they could build these kinds of permanent forms. And in the end, this this building was blown up by the British when they rooted the city, but the building and the building and wood and materials that over time would rot and return back to the earth, I think was intentional. It wasn't because other permanent forms were not available to them, but they very fundamentally understood that maybe how we build, should not be to radically change the face of the earth in a way that cannot be recovered. But a way that could when necessary, melt back and melt back into our surroundings. And not Yeah, just transform and hurt the earth too much. So this was like a very long way of saying that, like I just tried to have this approach in again, to different levels of success in in my scholarship and my practice, like, as likely as I can touch as possible. So that it's not so much about me, but about the collective or the greater. Yeah, the greater Earth or the greater world or the greater collective.
Alisha 14:39
Send the same question to Tuliza and Miliswa , like, how does this resonate? And also like, yeah, what is what is building a legacy mean for you?
Unknown Speaker 14:49
First of all, I love hearing your responses. Writing It's really wonderful. I think I'll also speak in between Unit 19 as a studio at the GSA and room19 as a factory just because room19 me is a factory emerged from the ideologies present in the academic studio some of the overarching questions that we've been asking in the academic studio has been about ways to, firstly even give language to other ways that space making has happened when there has been a threat to the ability to make space, you know, so again, thinking of a context like South Africa where a lot of displacement happens, and also not being able to really settle. So the starting up and able to own property, not being able to go back to the land that one came from, and being rendered nomads of sorts and kind of trespasses, as they move through spaces that indicate territoralized. There was a strong disconnect from the ability to build long lasting things, long lasting spaces. And so a lot of the way that space became negotiated, again, was through the body's ability to perform things into into existence, the ability to appropriate and to perform as a way to appropriate space that wasn't meant for certain practices. And so we've found, it's really important to first and foremost language that as very active and ongoing practices of space making, but also to offer that as ways of projecting futures that might otherwise have not been given space for the capacity to exist as a prediction of futures. And so what we found really important is to first make sense of things that have insisted on not dying, through memorialising, through performances through the body. And then, and then also, what it means to perform alternative futures other than the ones you're offered, which is a kind of magazine making in itself. But that's kind of been the way the studio has, or the academic studio and it's rooted. It's, it's questions from the mentee. And also through, you know, state service infrastructures, such as religion, or an idea of God, a collective idea of collective idea around violence and defence and so on how this informs how our body performs, how we occupy space, in relation to territories, and violence and so on. And so, yeah, it's been, I think, through that that we're, we're making sense of it. And then through the practice of room19 as a factory, we make sense of what that means, which isn't always built architecture, built infrastructure. Yeah, and so that's, that's kind of how
Unknown Speaker 18:23
I'm so I really resonate quite deeply with Kuukuwa's answers. In my own practice, I've really tried to make sense of what it means or you know, how to make a quiet impact in the ground in space. And even in the ways that we map space. Because I feel like there's something really powerful about being quietly disruptive, and you know, in the methods that I use, you know, performance and I also use Child's Play in my practice, part of, you know, performance and Child's Play is because I am actually always thinking about legacy and the role of childhood in knowledge transfer or the transfer of ideologies through performance. And then, you know, and how we embed certain ideologies in people in childhood already. And so in making sense of that, I always want to approach it with a very light touch. Because when I think of these concepts, in my mind anyways, they're quite ephemeral and difficult to grasp, and so I find it contracted started to engage with these concepts in. Yeah, like in the loud. You know, I'm making, you know, concrete. Yeah, proclamation of declaration.
Alisha 20:16
I think the quietness is quite interesting because I think when you think about sometimes leadership, sometimes it can be quite assertive. And I think the quietness or movement building system building aspect sometimes doesn't really take into account the quietness or the solitude required. This kind of lens on to like this other question I have about the violence that comes into coloniality. And the trauma, and I guess, in looking at kind of like the silences as well, like, how have you in the past forged spaces to alleviate any of this kind of tension of violence? Whether it's, you know, different impacts of that, especially when undertaking the work? And how have you been able to collectivise?
Unknown Speaker 21:03
Yeah. Great question to reflect on. And I think, it will move somewhat between personal experience, and also just the nature of architecture. Architecture is inherently a violent act, the way that we reconfigure the ground, the kind of scar the ground in order to make any kind of architecture happen, the level of impact it has due to the level of permanence that it has, or even the weight of the time on the spaces that it transforms is significant. Its level of permanence produces such a stark contrast between the natural world and it. And so I think I'm really reflecting as I go, but it's just making me think that a wonder where the part of the, the safety that Unit19 as a Studio presents is to suspend the pressure to, to practice through such violent means to just perhaps start asking other questions for the moment about space, and if it takes you back to that form of practice then so be it, but if it doesn't, it doesn't. And even the way that we get feedback, sometimes we feel an incredible pressure to get to the building and really, like just get the like, stop asking all these questions, stopped researching, like waste the building, you know, and so. And it's not that that material form doesn't manifest itself, it might not necessarily be visible, or it might not easily be languaged as buildings. And another as well is because we work with incredibly traumatic histories. And this, this wasn't even on purpose. But we've ended up finding ourselves playing a lot, you know, so working through nostalgia, working through toys and games. And we really have a lot of fun in the studio, one would be quite surprised, actually, the level of traumatic content we work with in relation to how much fun is also present. And I think there's also something really important about not taking oneself too seriously, which clay affords as well. And, and I think architecture, or the architectures, industry, something that takes itself incredibly seriously, is so incredibly bound to economic systems. In fact, job creation, resource management, all those sorts of things. And I think there's something also perhaps nice about suspending that sense of seriousness and professionalism that's associated to the architectural discipline, which ties itself into capitalist ideals as well.
Unknown Speaker 24:20
One thing I find really inspiring about your work with room19 as a factory Miliswa and Tuliza is, is how much time which I think it's really important how much time you're, you're putting into even understanding the specifics of the coloniality before jumping into the de coloniality, which I think is important and I think sometimes people don't pay so much attention to because it's incredibly important to kind of to share the work among other across and among other regions that also were colonised sometimes by the same the same empires, but there's just a specificity, right? So the colonial experience in South Africa is similar in some ways, but also very, very different to colonial experiences in Ghana. And then when you disaggregate it's like into particular regions, particular towns, particular villages, there's like a very granular specificity, which is also important to understand. So does that thing I find is borne out by the work like, gets into the specifics of how it's happened, before thinking of ways to counter to heal, to play, right. So another thing that I picked up on which I don't know if it's a colonial thing, per se, it certainly wasn't helped by being colonised. And kind of related to this, the idea of like terraforming and master planning, where it's like just this, individualism and this, this need to be the first to have done something or the only to have done something that I just find very jarring and unhelpful and unproductive. So I think that I also tried to counter that with is like, going to the collective, like making the thing collective communal, and not highlighting one single hero who vanquished everything and what and save the day, when you're reading like kind of Canon about histories of architecture in all of Africa, like you're just saying, it's not architecture for many reasons, but one of the reasons is that it's an architecture because there are no architects or no known architects, no named architects. So this is why they will talk about what's his name, the Egyptian one whose name has just escaped my mind. But like, that's an architect, that's a name stamped on a building. But when there's no name stamped on the building, then clearly there's no architecture. But that's like groups and clans, families of builders, who are who have expertise and specialised knowledge that they pass on from generation to generation. And again, the not having one name is also the point here. Maybe that's the points that we come at these things from the collective, we come at these things community, and there's like a strength and power in that, which we use when we try and make it about the the individual and like making one individuals special. That's one of the things that like really makes me lean towards like collective work. And I purchase something from a community and thinking how it affects the community, and how we can ground it in a communal approach, but also understanding the importance of like, individual leadership sometimes.
Alisha 27:56
Exactly. I also think that like, it's always quite weird for certain empires to look at things from a sense of, okay, this is a communal effort, rather than an individual effort. And I think because within a lot of empires, they've had to go through this understanding of measuring something they always have to measure. And that kind of defeats the purpose of the actual outputs, especially when it comes to design, especially when it comes to building spaces. And I think it does have kind of like these impacts and effects. Because I think, on one hand, you have this entirety, where there's this whole award system that comes with it as well, where it's always again about the individual. And there isn't that understanding of like, oh, you know, in order for this to have come about, it has taken an entire team. And there are many people that, you know, are not recognised within that. So, how do we? Well, I think one of the questions that I think about quite often is like how, how can we enforce better ways of acknowledgement, recognition, but also really understand that like, this work is never ever going to be like a one person job. Because it even when you think about the ways in which you know, an individual has learned lessons, it's from other people, unconsciously or consciously. So I guess it's also about recognising, you know, the traditional kind of aspects of oral traditions as well how not everything is going to be written down, but things are going to be translated and ways in which the next generation or the elder generation are ever going are going to be able to understand which can transfer that knowledge and transfer that work. And one thing I do have to ask as well as like in the height of the pandemic, we will definitely like toss into a lot of digital spaces. And I felt like this definitely transformed the way in which we build we work and we live in this kind of space of two years, what has challenged you the most, and also what has inspired you the most,
Miliswa Ndziba 30:05
I actually spent the past two years doing my honours degree and master's degree online because of the lockdown. And so what I experienced was a very, you know, we had to make really quick recalibration to working online, which initially was quite challenging. But in my reflection of the past two years, um, you know, reflecting my own work, and in the work of my peers, was actually encouraged by was that we were able to thrive, I think the work of the studio was able to thrive in the digital realm, which is sometimes, you know, not something that you would expect, especially as architectural practitioners. But what was encouraging about it was that, for me, it's, what it meant was that ways of making sense of practising are malleable and flexible enough to adapt to different contexts and to different conditions. And I find that so encouraging, because when you look at our, you know, the conventional ways of practising those ways, were you know, always we're constantly at odds with the lockdown situation. And so if anything, it was an indication that, you know, there's something that we're doing that's right.
Tuliza Sindi 31:47
Just to extend on. what Miliswa was highlighting. So, unit 19, started in 2020. So the other pandemic was our first year, which was incredibly nerve wracking, because, you know, the GSA had had been running in person all the years before. So although it was at least good in the sense that we didn't necessarily have a precedent before of running for many years in person, and then somehow having to translate it online. It was also still something quite unnerving about needing to make sense of how to teach architecture online meeting to teach about space, and things that are three dimensional, three dimensional conceptualization through flat surfaces and screens. So I think there was that aspect that was really just daunting and overwhelming, because everything required translation. So how the year was initially designed needed to be translated, and converted through these other platforms. And I think the biggest, like fundamentally biggest challenge was access to scale, sense of scale, because you know, the screen flattens everything. And no, often we think that a model is so much bigger than it is. And then when we finally see it, almost to the end of the year in person is just nothing like we thought. So there was this really interesting gaps that were present, particularly around scale that we found really interesting. What I do think it offered, though, that I think was really amazing, was it it offered us some some degree of isolation, where we could think freely, without feeling too overwhelmed by everything around us and kind of making the pressures that happened in a space like an architecture studio and in the human system is quite serious pressure between different units and we were a brand new unit. So it's not necessarily like we had a portfolio to show for, you know, for what we were capable of the what we do or what. And so it was, it was helpful to be able to, to working in cacoon
Alisha 34:21
How do we move forward as design historians, urbanists, builders, spatial practitioners architects multi-designers, landscape researchers, planners and ecologists like? And the list goes on and on and on.
Tuliza Sindi 34:39
I think the opportunity I mean, besides the immense losses, the trauma and the tragedy those also presents, I think it did also offer us an opportunity to ask questions about the way that we live that we might have understood as an unchangeable norm. And I just wonder if, you know, they'd be potentially at the moments like this constantly offering us an opportunity to rethink ways that we practice ways that we build systems ways that we build institutions.
Miliswa Ndziba 35:09
I think if I can jump in, what I actually also find interesting about that is, there at least appears to be a push, maybe not by everyone, but by some to start considering, you know, the post Anthropocene. And what I think is so interesting about that, is that what the pandemic revealed is that we're nowhere near a place where we can start imagining what the Earth looks like without human intervention. And so, you know, when you ask the question of like, where do you see us moving? You know, as you know, these different practitioners? I think that that is a conversation, I see that as a conversation that could emerge, you know, what does it mean, to engage that kind of future prematurely? When we have yet to address, you know, the current, you know, pressing conditions that we are experiencing them.
Tuliza Sindi 36:24
Yeah, I agree. You know, what I find really interesting is how, particularly this year, it's felt a little bit strange, how they've spoken, but at least in the past two years, about a new normal, and this has been all about getting back to a normal that I'm not sure we can quite get back to ever again. So there's also been something about institutions attempting to preserve all systems. And I think, you know, to your point about the importance, then of how we teach, and, and I just say this, because of being in an academic space, it's been really interesting to see the plush in kind of the bureaucratic attempt to keep things exactly as it was. And, you know, let's just not break anything. Because it was very tumultuous. And on the opposite end, after I mean, I mean, as a human race, we've literally survived a pandemic, we've gone through a lot, you know, so the questions we're asking, you know, we're survivors. But the questions that we're asking are informed by the trauma we've just experienced, you know, it's raised a whole new questions about what futures mean about, you know, the, the time left, we have with our, our people, you know, changes our priorities or changes our level of courage, even that we're able to display in spaces like that. And so I think, I think there's definitely a tension between human shifts and institutional attempts to not shift to kind of be stable, and insisting on being unable to collapse that I'm finding really interesting.
Alisha 38:18
Yes. And just so I just want to pick up on that, that mentioned of collapse. Like, I think that, to me, is the most interesting aspect governed by institutions, it's like it's not, it's almost this kind of weird space to be in where there are different forms or different works that maybe are not necessarily working, and instead to collapse the thing, we still continue the thing. Just think to myself, like, there are ways in which we can, we can have discourses around the ways in which you know, students or people or communities learn and understand and I guess, absorb information. But I think there's another thing to be said about just letting things be. And if something is not necessarily working, it's not working. And I think there's this weird tug of war sometimes, especially that I've seen in the past year, where it's like something that's meant to collapse has not collapsed yet.
Kuukuwa Manful 39:23
Yeah. It reminds me of this quote from Ursula Le Guin , the fantasy science fiction writer. So it's paraphrasing here, but she she's talking about capitalism, and how the power of capitalism seems inescapable. And then she reminds us that, yes, it was for people who lived when there was a divine right of kings. They also thought that was inescapable. Basically, any human institution can be resisted and will be resisted and changed by human beings. And this connects to something that Mariame Kaba the present abolitionist organiser, Mariame Kaba, says, which is about hope, as a discipline. So no hope being hopeful as like, this light, airy fuzzy feeling inside you. But as a thing, you have to work out every day because I have a vision for this future that you want. And I'm I'm hopeful, even in the fuzzy way, like, the more I see, like these things, I think are like, the last dying gasps of capitalism, because people. Yeah, before I see that this is not a way, like even the people who had to have hope of the billionaires one day, I like seeing that this is, this is probably not going to happen. And I don't think people are going to move away from wanting to have a lot yet because that's a big ask and I accepted. But I think people are seeing that, okay, we can have a society where there's a basic level for everyone, that everybody can live in comfort and comfort in decency. And then maybe I'll still be as rich as Jeff basis, which I think is a fantasy. But there, at least, like I'm seeing more and more a shift towards like, Okay, we can't do this, like people are like, because before and then bringing it back to the UK, these conversations around the energy crisis, like just a few hours ago, the overwhelming thing would have been, oh, you push your work hard if they want to be able to pay their bills. But now like people will kind of be like, Oh, maybe it's not okay, that someone should freeze to death, because they can afford an increase in energy bills. And I think that's a big is a big move and a big step. We're not quite at like a socialist utopia yet, and probably wouldn't be. But at least like people are shifting towards like, there should be a basic standard of life. Right?
Alisha 41:58
Yeah, I also think it's this understanding of like, people have created this mentality, especially this from a UK standpoint, where it's based on the monarchy, based on this kind of work, work, work, you know, back in the day, they used to call working class people, peasants. And that is absolutely newly mad. And they used to work seven days a week. Now with this space, where we're working five days a week. And, you know, I think we're, we're merging on the fronts of really thinking about what does it mean for me as a human being to live, and enjoy my work, and work in spaces that are actually good for my health, good for my well being? And, you know, I think people are really asking themselves these questions they're asking themselves about oh, like, the pandemic has made me realise how much I want to be around my family more than ever. And then you're going to these spaces of loss and grief and, and you want people around you. And so I think people are really starting to think about like, okay, so what is it mean for me to be in this space, and for me to work in an environment that is going to benefit me in the long haul. And it's not going to, it's not going to make me feel as isolated as I ever felt in the pandemic because the pandemic was, by and large, a just an episode of isolation for a lot of us. Are there any last thing that you would like to share or just encouraging notes or anything like that?
Tuliza Sindi 43:35
I'll just share this because I think it's a message I needed to hear when I was a student. And so when I wrote it, I wrote it for this generation of students, but I needed to hear it, but it was for the September issue, 20, September 2020 issue of the architecture. And that issue was for all it was called Letters to a Young architects. And so a couple of us were invited to write letters. And so I wrote six letters, but there's one that continually resonates with me, that I didn't even realise I needed to hear. But it says, not just pardon my French, but it says, "Fuck working from the margins, centre yourself and work from there, then do not explain yourself will find you" And I wrote that as a letter from new practitioners future audience, you know that we are an audience that's waiting for these new emerging practitioners to emerge as themselves in the discipline. And so, I really fundamentally do not believe in working from the margins. You know, if you are described and have been socially politically economically positioned on the margins, you can you can produce from your centre as opposed to literally You know, separating yourself continually, or at least distancing yourself continually from any producer of Canada, contributor to Canada, and so on. And so just say that and it's just such an act time to step into oneself. And I think that things like the pandemic have afforded us that because I think a lot of questions have emerged that require emerging practitioners to be asking, and pursuing real, bold and complex questions that we don't have answers for.
Alisha 45:36
Yeah, definitely. I just want to say also, I read it, I read your loved it, it was at a time when I was losing hope, in architecture. So not to say that, like, I'm in that space. And I think I've mentioned to all of you, like, I've accepted personally, like, I'm, I'm always gonna be in architecture, whether I like to admit it or not. But I think just in that space of reading about, like, your work Tuliza at that moment when I saw it, and I was like, Yeah, the margins I was like, Yeah, that makes sense.
Tuliza Sindi 46:07
I'm so glad. And I'm glad that you're not out of architecture, architecture needs you.
Miliswa Ndziba 46:14
On my side it may sound easier said than done. But I would say, you know, if your audience isn't where you're at, then go out and find that audience. And I think something as important since you're speaking from personal history, you know, rather than fighting to convince those who are invested and not, or invested in misunderstanding, rather to reserve your energy and put it into creating that work that will appeal to the audience, which will reveal itself to you.
Alisha 46:54
Amazing, amazing. Well, thank you so much. Literally, it's been really, really, like it's honestly been a blessing, like carrying one of you and even to get us all in this podcast. I'm just so glad. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
All the topics in this season touch back to you saying seeds of exchange. If anything in this episode spoke to you at all, I always love hearing thoughts and expressions that can be birthed from single or collective stories. As I'm on this journey to learn here and design from this space. Please note that this is also a personal invitation and not everything may be relative to you. Carving Your own space is so central whatever that may be. Remember to follow or subscribe to this podcast and you can find me on Twitter and Instagram @aisformorenike And during my quarterly newsletter at www.alishamorenike.co. You can also support my work or advocacy by the different donation links on these pages. Be sure to hit us up Is Seven A Gang on Tidal on Apple Music The collective whose music has been playing this episode. All right, take care.