Cartographies of Masculinity

Pathway to Redemption

Brighton Matambo

MArch 2021

Supervisors:
Unit Leader: Tuliza Sindi
Unit Tutor: Muhammad Dawjee
Unit Assistant: Lynette Breed

UNIT 19^︎︎︎
The Act of Service: The Myth of Violence

This is a provocation brought forward by South African Psychology Professor Kopano Ratele in his book Liberating Masculinities, where he  articulates masculinity as a pattern of cultural practices by which men are defined.

Colonisation introduced male boarding schools with the aim of training boys to take over and maintain that system. This resulted in the negation of indigenous cultural practices, of which Xhosa culture is the project’s research focus. Architecture was used as a social weapon to render culture static, maintaining its ideological position through this static nature that continues to inform human behaviour in space today.

The Afrikaner people who claimed rule over South Africa from the British colonial forces believed themselves to be God‘s chosen people who were destined for national rule. Through the bible they introduced policies that further cemented this colonial position. Through fantastical image-making, this project investigates the boarding school, SACS High School in Cape Town, as a site that produces and sustains the hegemonic masculinities that have continued to negate indigenous self-identification. At an intimate ritual level, the project reveals cultural practices sustained and intercepted through architecture.

The project interrogates the sanctuary given to the Israelites in the book of Exodus as a redemption plan meant to save God’s people from sin. The project proposes a man’s sanctuary meant to liberate masculinity from its troubled state.

Keywords:
Masculinity, Sanctuary, Artefacts

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