A Tale of Food Security

An Investigation in Utilising Colonial Tactics to Explore the Reconciliation of Extorted Land and Create New Landscapes Through Storytelling

Liam Wepener

MArch 2022

Supervisors:
Unit Leader: Dr. Finzi Saidi
Unit Leader: Mathebe Aphane
Unit Tutor: Bonolo Masango
Unit Tutor: Nomalanga Mahlangu

UNIT 15X
Landscapes of Memory

Evidence of colonial exploitation on the land is evident even in neo-liberal South Africa. The way in which the land was desecrated by colonial powers is seen through the several mine tailing sites throughout Johannesburg. The project seeks to remediate this narrative through the adoption of colonial strategies to remedy the soil and furthermore create an urban food farm.

In this process I will seek to tell a story of reconciliation through the landscape over a period of 15 years, thereby allowing itself to be apologue – a children’s story with a underpinning message in its core. The use of colonial strategies to oversee the remediation process is driven in holding colonisation - as an idea, accountable to the past exploitative enterprises. This then allows improved conditions on site to solve a current problem – food security, existing in present times.

Through the remediation of the landscape and the eventual creation of a urban farm, the site will display the conduction of using colonisation strategies to reconcile the narrative and provide a precedent to the idea of regenerating a toxic landscape.

Keywords:
Food Security, Technology, Reconciliation, Apologue, Remediation