The project titled, Speculations of the Terrains: A Journey Towards Agency, aims to take back power from the global North and West Superpowers by imparting knowledge and narratives that encourage taking agency. The project focuses on the degradation of soil and air in relation to South Africa’s social and economic climate. The final intervention results in a subverted museum typology, disrupting the imposed sense of order and allowing for the usurpation of colonized people’s stories and identities by an oppressive force.
The project explores the not-so-subtle power structures and infrastructures that manifest above and below, such as the railway line in Johannesburg, which separates North and South and ultimately, White and Other.
The Old Park Station, an emblematic structure of the Mining age and Dutch regime, was chosen as a location for the museum.
The project uses a bottom-up approach and understanding of storytelling to connect and relate to each other, creating a space where moments of restricted and endangering movement are allowed. The spatial experience is curated through the lens of four perspectives: the mine worker, the oppressor, the bystander, and considered “other.” The use of critical fabulation through architectural visualization of the network of cubes, holder of the curated story of Johannesburg by evidence of the body of research done for the project – shows up as a form of decolonialization by informing, provoking, and antagonizing the colonial narrative. The power of the subverted museum is taking back power and having a sense of custodianship, rather than ownership.
