Custodianship of Paradise
Counter-mapping Ancestral Land and Legacies
The Moon Dance. Mathibedi, T. Unit 19. 2021.
Tuki Mathibedi
MArch 2021Supervisors:
Unit Leader: Tuliza Sindi
Unit Tutor: Muhammad Dawjee
Unit Assistant: Lynette Breed
UNIT 19︎︎︎
The Act of Service: The Myth of Violence
According to the State Land Audit of 2017, the majority of land in South Africa is still owned by white people and is located in economic generating territories - while the natives who are the majority, own far less and are located in territories that are far away from economic activity (Department of Rural Development and Land Reform of SA, 2018).
Architectural elements such as buildings, physical and natural boundaries are used to legitimise territories that dictate who is granted permission and access and who is not.
The work investigates architecture’s complicity in the bureaucratic production of land ownership, which operates alongside instruments such as legislated land laws, title deeds and town planning schemes. The work approaches these instruments as fictions.
The work posits that architecture remains a tool to maintain boundaries of marginalisation and investigates ways to infiltrate those boundaries.
The project explores spaces anchored around Khoi and San sacred sites within Cape Town, as ceremonial sites of intervention. Through an urban design framework, I map a seasonal network of spiritual ceremonies through a festival procession of ‘no ownership’.
The ritual practice of these ceremonies begin to infiltrate the surrounding territory, distorting the city’s cartography to generate a new form of landscape.
The proposition focuses on Cape Town at the ideological scale, the urban scale where the festival procession will take place, and rituals at the scale of the body, connecting two sites. The first site is The Rivers Urban Park in Observatory, and the other is Llandudno Beach.
Architectural elements such as buildings, physical and natural boundaries are used to legitimise territories that dictate who is granted permission and access and who is not.
The work investigates architecture’s complicity in the bureaucratic production of land ownership, which operates alongside instruments such as legislated land laws, title deeds and town planning schemes. The work approaches these instruments as fictions.
The work posits that architecture remains a tool to maintain boundaries of marginalisation and investigates ways to infiltrate those boundaries.
The project explores spaces anchored around Khoi and San sacred sites within Cape Town, as ceremonial sites of intervention. Through an urban design framework, I map a seasonal network of spiritual ceremonies through a festival procession of ‘no ownership’.
The ritual practice of these ceremonies begin to infiltrate the surrounding territory, distorting the city’s cartography to generate a new form of landscape.
The proposition focuses on Cape Town at the ideological scale, the urban scale where the festival procession will take place, and rituals at the scale of the body, connecting two sites. The first site is The Rivers Urban Park in Observatory, and the other is Llandudno Beach.
![Map of Alternative Sites. Mathibedi, T. Unit 19. 2021](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b0c95bcf08469d4e9af3636e01291e26aad331f397ebcd336e66ca86fa7d7026/2.-Map-of-Alternative-Sites.-Mathibedi--T.-Unit-19.-2021-.jpg)
![Khoi _ San Revivalists Lineage. Mathibedi, T. Unit 19. 2021](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/693549687bccd9c2982011e0e8048c2c0026ed64776e6b0d77227b6945a7d194/3.-Khoi-_-San-Revivalists-Lineage.-Mathibedi--T.-Unit-19.-2021-.jpg)
![Procession System catalogue. Mathibedi, T. Unit 19. 2021](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5a534f78e34e8a9467fcfa1675adfe336429d66882aba22a9714e4cefc869abe/4.-Procession-System-catalogue.-Mathibedi--T.-Unit-19.-2021-.jpg)
![Float Assembly Drawing. Mathibedi, T. Unit 19. 2021](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/23cebb3cf45cb682699ffd07f6fa30e009437b56bf7fa3ad296a7bb73023a85f/6.-Float_Assembly-Drawing.-Mathibedi--T.-Unit-19.-2021-.jpg)
![Section - Immersion into Grave Site. Mathibedi, T. Unit 19. 2021](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/487b9026472cf681300ad5164ef7ea75551d5f130ae50cbc6bd59be025a2d887/8.-Section---Immersion-into-Grave-Site.-Mathibedi--T.-Unit-19.-2021--.jpg)
Keywords:
Violence, Land Ownership, Counter-mapping, Ritual
Violence, Land Ownership, Counter-mapping, Ritual
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