Ritual Spaces and Cultural Representation

This is great. If everybody's comfortable, just a few minutes after the hour, is everybody comfortable if we get started? Wonderful. Thank you very much, everybody, for joining us this morning. I'm Douglas McLeod, the Chair of Architecture at Athabasca University, and I'm actually very delighted about this particular talk. both the reasons that it's going to be very, very interesting, but also because it's done in partnership with Open Architecture, who is sponsoring today's lecture. So thank you very much to Open Architecture. But the success of the last three events that we've held in the virtual lecture series have suggested that we actually could do something on a global basis together. And what we're kicking around now is the idea of a global studio, which might have activities extending over the course of an entire year. which we would invite everybody who's online and everybody's institutions to be part of. We are going to apply for a grant here in Canada, which we would like to share. If there's ways that you want to contribute, we're certainly not going to turn down cash or in-kind contributions, but it's not a deal breaker. Whatever you can bring to the table, we would be interested in hearing from you. We don't just want to do lectures. We would like to have activities where students are engaged with... perhaps even creating things, perhaps even creating curriculum. We'd like to do activities and workshops and other kinds of things. And some of the themes that we've talked about, and I think they're all critically important, are regenerative design, universal design, and also the very serious issue of decolonizing our design education, which is something we're all looking into now and we'd like to work together on. But at the same time, so if that's of interest, please let one of us know. Kristen or Veronica or myself or Lone or any of the people who've been involved with this, if that's something that you might want to participate in, we'd love to see it. But the other thing we want to try and do over the last few weeks, as we've all sort of been hunkered down in our homes and not able to do too much, I've started actually playing music with friends who are in Toronto. Now, I'm in Kelowna. They're in Toronto. That's about 3000 kilometers away. It's not always great. But what I wanted to say is if there's other architect musicians out there who might want to try a global jam, I'd be very interested in seeing if we could make this work as well. I guarantee you the sound quality is not going to be wonderful, but the sense of community would be. So if that's of interest to you, please let me know. And just to let you know, Veronica Madonna has stepped in for He San, who's organized the other one. So thank you very much, Veronica. and she's going to moderate the questions. So if you have a question for Dr. Mappe today, please put it into the chat. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Lone Paulson from Open Architecture. Lone? Thank you very much. Yes, so I'm Lone Paulson. I'm the program director for an entity called Open Architecture. So Open Architecture is not an educational institution as such. It's really an initiative of the South African Institute of Architects as part of their transformation program. And it was set up to try and find flexible part-time and blended ways for people who had some qualification in architecture already who wanted to complete their studies and become full-on architects, but were unable to return to full-time studies. So we were looking to collaborate with institutions to try and set up part-time programs. And from 2014 to 2019 we collaborated with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology on a graduate program which has been very successful and in fact this year CPUT adopted that mode of teaching into their kind of mainstream offering because they found that this part-time blended program worked very well. And as it turns out, with the COVID happening, it was really fortuitous in a way that they had shifted over to that. So currently we're looking and discussing with various institutions about master's, honors and master's programs. And that's really how we got involved with this group of institutions who participated in this global series, because we were looking for other institutions who were doing similar things. And it was really. Wonderful to be able to team up with people who were facing the same kinds of challenges. had successes, had experience that we could draw on as well. So it's been very wonderful to be part of this collaboration. And as Douglas said earlier, also that it's now morphed into this kind of global lecture series, which is really fantastic to be able to share lectures with people from all over the world. Prior to joining Open Architecture, I was actually at Wits University in Johannesburg. 20 years and was the architecture program director for a while. And I first met Sachaba when he applied to enter first year studies. And I've sort of been watching his progress ever since then, both as an architect, as a researcher, and also as a teacher and academic. And it's been really wonderful to see his growth over the years. So when Kristen, who has an association with the University of... suggested that we should invite Sachaba to give this lecture, we jumped at the opportunity to not only be a co-sponsor but also to highlight issues and challenges and research that is going on in South Africa. And I believe that what Sachaba will share with us today is really highlighting the kind of broad spectrum of issues and challenges in academic curriculum questions that are being asked all over the world at the moment around issues of culture, identity and the meaning of space. But I'm going to hand over to Kristen now to actually introduce Sachaba because she's been working with him over the last number of years and is more familiar with the work that he's going to present. So Kristen, if you'd like to introduce Sachaba. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. Sechava and I decided to introduce this in a bit of a different way, both to honor the topic that he's presenting and also to address the fact that we all bring ourselves into architecture. And so we're starting with a bit of the story of our history. But before I get to that, I'd like to observe the ancient protocol of gathering in the place where I live. that the people speaking tell the connection to their place. When I'm not in Johannesburg, I stay beside a lake in the vast Shuswap watershed, lands that have been the home of the Sekwepem people for over 10 millennia. I acknowledge that I'm a settler and a guest on these lands. When Europeans arrived in this region of Western Canada in the late 1700s, no treaties were ever signed in legal agreement of occupation. My family came to Turtle Island in the 1600s. Turtle Island, to most of you, is better recognized in today's political mapping as Mexico, the United States, and Canada. So with this timeline, I acknowledge my own lineage that is deeply woven into the colonization of this continent. In 2007, I arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa on a Fulbright grant and with an award-winning design. I often tell people that that year introduced me to my own Western arrogance. I stayed and did my PhD at BITS. It was then that I met Sachaba and our extraordinary friendship took hold. Its depths was honored earlier this year when I became the godmother to he and San's baby, Agape. That friendship has been filled with long conversations, generally not at work, but instead over meals or coffee, amidst great music on road trips. walking in sun-baked landscapes, and quietly whispered in the sacred caves of his home region of Kuruman. Together we have stretched our thinking around humanity and the human occupying of space. Seychalba'framing of his ongoing spatial understanding cuts across such disciplines as architecture, anthropology, archaeology, neurophenomenology, environmental psychology, and embodiment. His work explores the relationships between self-induced trauma, ritual, adaptability, and belonging. It is embedded in some of the local beliefs from his home town as practices of place attachment. Our conversations challenge my own limitations in my understanding of architecture as defined by white ideologies. Place is a subjective experience that we all recognize as a deep part of our understanding of architecture. Expanding world views will stretch that understanding. Today, Seychalba will share with us a way of seeing and being in and rendering living landscapes that is deeply grounded in his relationship with the elders of Kuruman. his rigorous architectural training, and his own personal journey as he grapples with the ancient and contemporary role of ritual as mediator to psychological and physical attachment to place. His practice pushes back at a colonized architecture in his own native South Africa, yet has such relevance far beyond those boundaries of state. It is working to retrieve meaning in those sacred and precarious spaces that are in danger of being lost or hijacked or undervalued. It is with great pleasure and humility that I introduce Sechab today so that he can have one of these great conversations with all of you. But before I hand over to him, I want to read a short poem from the Black Lives Matter collection of the American Academy of Poets, simply because poetry I find opened my mind, allowing it to take things in in a different way. Ode to a Head Nod by Elizabeth Acevedo. The slight angling of the forehead, neck extension, quick jut of chin, meeting the stranger's eyes, a gilded curtsy to the sun fill in another, in yourself, tithe of respect. In an early version, the copy editor deleted the word head from the title. The copy editor said it's implied. The copy editor means well. The copy editor means. She is only fluent in one language of gestures. I do not explain. I feel sad for her. Limited understanding of greetings. And maybe this is why my acknowledgements are so long. Didn't we learn this early? To look at a white space and find the color. Thank God, oh thank God, for you are here. And with that, I'll turn it over to Sechava. Okay, thank you very much, Kristen. And thank you everyone for coming to listen to this talk. I feel very honored. And after many, many years, I can finally share all of these ideas that I've kept to myself. So let me start. The title of my talk is Drawing Creepy Places, Representing Liminal Ritual Spaces in Guruman. South Africa. So I'm going to start with just a brief background of the study and then I'm going to talk also very briefly about representation of sacred spaces. Then I'm going to go into three case studies which is three caves in my home region of Kuruman. One is called Lohobati Cave. the other one, Khamohana Cave, and then Vonovag Cave. Two of these caves are currently research sites that are being researched by, in fact, one Canadian university and another researcher who is originally from Wits, an American researcher who's originally from Wits and now is, I think, in Australia. And they have, they are places that have lots of rich archaeological finds, but at the same time they are ritual sacred spaces for the local people. So in terms of the background of the study, I started off the study as a PhD and the main finding of my PhD was that In order for people to adapt to change, especially climate change or environmental change, rituals played a significant role. They facilitated some kind of synchronicity between the self and the environment. So as far as diagrams were concerned, as far as representing these ideas were concerned, this diagram on the right was the only one that I actually had throughout my entire PhD. as an architect. I know that's terrible and that's very disappointing. But there was a parallel study that was happening in my sketchbooks where I was actually trying to represent this particular diagram in a visual style that would much better capture what I was trying to say. So before I show you that, I want to just quickly discuss That's the theoretical framework that I used. So I... Spent a lot of time looking at anthropology Work by anthropologists such as Victor Turner. I'm sure everyone knows Turner Ivan von Gannett and Joseph Campbell And you know, all of them have done these sort of cross-cultural studies of what rituals are They looked at various practices from around the world and consolidated them and sort of had a model of what rituals are So that was part of the theoretical framework. The next element of the theoretical framework was neuroscience. And there are some neuroscientists who have begun looking at ritual practice. I mean, I first came across this idea of looking at neuroscience through David Lewis Williams, who many people who know anything about rock art in South Africa would know about David Lewis Williams. He studied the way in which people who undergo trance eventually do drawings that express their experiences in trance. And he cites the brain and the functioning of the brain as the reason why some of these drawings turned out the way they were. Although there are other hypotheses, that was his main hypothesis. I use neuroscience as a way of also trying to understand the way rituals work in relation to the brain. So entoptic phenomena are one of the kind of universal things that people have cited as part of the experiences that someone has during trance and ritual. And then finally, I used phenomenology, so hence cultural neurophenomenology, because the problem with just using neuroscience is that people tend to then make sort of experiences, human experiences reduced to neurons and, you know, just brain, electrical brain mechanisms. So phenomenology obviously then takes into account the subjective experience of people. And so cultural neurophenomenology has been a study that tries to understand the sort of broader sense of what rituals are. So that was the theoretical framework that I used. So I don't want to bore you much more about that. So in this diagram, what I was trying to show is what is this process of ritual? So according to the neuroscientific explanation, rituals are an excitation of the brain. So people induce some form of trauma upon themselves and through that inducing of trauma they allow the self to have potential to shift or to change. So in this diagram the first image at the top shows current perspective for instance that somebody has. Then through ritual excitation or you know some sort of dislodging happens and this is what we call the liminal phase in ritual. The neuroscientist Walter Freeman suspects that through these ritual practices, the chemical oxytocin is what's mobilized. And that's what starts to allow for potential for shifting and changing and dissolving of the boundaries of the self. And then through San, through coming back into the community, the person is brought back or grounded again after that traumatic experience. So during this time, I was very much influenced and interested by Peter Rich's drawing on the left. Now, Peter is here and he's joined us. And I've spoken to him several times trying to find out what this drawing is actually really about. I'm yet to hear it from him, what this drawing is specifically about. But for me personally, when I first saw it about... 10 maybe 12 years ago I think, I felt as if this drawing resonated with something within myself. He called it a mythological representation of a mythological worldview of a high-felt tribe. Although representing the worldview of other people is obviously problematic, you know we could have a whole talk about that. This drawing was for me something that sparked a whole process of how one can begin to represent one's own worldview. And in my case, I wanted to represent the worldview of my own people. But I used this drawing in my sketch as part of a way of engaging some of the ideas that I just spoke about regarding ritual. The drawing on the right is Pancho Geddes'drawing. And, you know, I think... I don't know whether Peter was influenced by this drawing or other drawings of Pancho's, but for me, the first person perspective of this drawing was what was compelling. It really made me feel as if it opens up a framework to begin to talk about world view. And you know, in architecture, when you are coming from the context I'm coming from, no one really talks about the sort of hidden meaning behind things that you were accustomed to feeling as if have hidden meaning. You know, the world is perceived as objective. But these kind of drawings began to make me feel as if I could engage my own worldview somehow. So then I began to do drawings such as this one, influenced by Peter, by Pancho. And in this drawing, I'm really trying to discover certain ways of putting together images to begin to describe the process that I spoke about regarding ritual. So how do you represent the world changing and the human being or the self being reorganized as a process of responding to this changing world? So another one of these diagrams was this one. So I mean, these are just a sample. I did many, many of these in my sketchbook parallel. to what I was doing in my PhD. They never made it into the PhD because, you know, I think at that time, I didn't quite see the value in them as much as I do today. This is yet again, another one of these diagrams where I was trying to explore. In this one, I was trying to explore the idea of intentionality or drawing your attention out into the world. you know, and seeking for something in the world as opposed to having a world that's already made, an objective world that's already made. So the people inside the heads are a representation of ritual being what influences perception. So I wasn't satisfied with those drawings because they weren't really capturing what this diagram was trying to achieve. So what I ended up doing is I turned the diagram onto its side like this, and that started to open up an opportunity for me to really begin to explore the potential to begin to describe the relationship between the self and the world. And so in this diagram, it's meant to represent the changing self being inside a changing world. And Ritual being that which mediates between the changing self and the changing world. So I use that same model or that same framework to try and speak about the transition or the experience of ritual. So on the left is the first sort of worldview or paradigm of the person. And then as they go through ritual, they cross a threshold and they cross an ordeal. And this ordeal is usually... a very traumatic experience. So, you know, ordeals are usually characterized by feelings of fear, or people being isolated, or people going through sleeplessness, like I am right now, because I've got a three month old baby, you know, ingesting purgatives, or ingesting hallucinogens. So all sorts of things are done to the self in order to experience this ordeal. And this ordeal, according to the neuroscience and according to the anthropologists, is what dissolves the self, what breaks the self down in order to be assimilated into a new perspective or into a new world. So that's what this diagram is trying to illustrate, is that the person sort of bridges into this new dimension of this new world. through this ordeal. And so a daily practice, so you can imagine like for instance, the San people practice the trance dance daily or very often rather. So someone who's going through these sort of self-induced traumas on a daily basis, you know, does that mean that their self is constantly being broken down so that they are assimilated with the world? That's what I ended up sort of concluding out of this exercise and ended up with a diagram like this. And in this diagram, what it's saying is that because the constant change of the world is... requiring the self to be broken down every single day. And this trauma is what allows the self to be broken down every single day to be part of this rhythm or the synchronicity with the world. But this diagram for me wasn't complete. There were certain things that were not quite there yet. And through the sites that I'm going to talk about now, I ended up finding a way of trying to complete this diagram. So... I'm going to just briefly talk about representation of sacred spaces, because these, I think, are the spaces where this very process of breaking down the self occurs. And so, for instance, this is Lalibela. And I think that these are the places where this process happens, where the self is restructured or reorganized or broken down, either to be assimilated into other groups. or to be assimilated into the whole, you know, to inhabit existence or to inhabit life. But in terms of representation, these sites are generally represented in this way. So this is from Mark Josembek, Ching Mark Josembek, and I can't remember, I can't pronounce his name. But the... point is that from the way I saw it, these kind of drawings really are objective representations of this space. You know, as far as I was concerned, they don't necessarily represent the meaning that's embedded within this place. And that's not to say that these drawings have no value. Obviously, they've got lots of value, but you know, there's to me something, a layer of meaning that I would want to explore over and above them being represented as objective spaces in this way. So what has happened recently is that these very same kind of sacred spaces that hold so much meaning have become, there's been a new layer of representation that's been introduced through 3D modeling. So this is, done by a project in Cape Town, UCT, the School of Architecture called the Zamani Project. And what they do is that they go using laser scanning, they scan various sites across the world, typically archaeological sites such as this one. And again, in my view, through this kind of methodology, I feel as if there's a layer of meaning that's stripped away, you know, because what are we seeing here? in relation to the deeper meaning of these kind of places. Now, the very same project has done scans of a cave in my hometown. This is the Woonerweg Cave. And, you know, this cave for me and for other people, not everyone in the community, because not everyone values the cave in the same way. We are obviously a diverse and dynamic group of people who come from there. But some people value this place as a sacred space. And for me, it's concerning that the representation of the space looks like this, you know, that we are comfortable to represent it as a plant in a section, a 3D object. And so there's very little representation of its... cultural value to people who come from my hometown. Now a very interesting take on representation comes from anthropologist Tim Ingold and in this drawing Tim Ingold is drawing a salmon. And I know that this obviously does not look like a salmon but what he's trying to capture here is actually the movement of salmon. So what Jesus... basically trying to say is that he's trying to bring back the life that's within the salmon. So this is just a quote that really brings this idea home for me in relation to the question of objectivity versus an animated life or an animated world. He says, this is how we are used to drawing it and it is the way from which Milner started out. We look at the drawing and even if poorly executed we can immediately recognize it as a fish, and yet it might as well be dead. There is nothing in the drawing to suggest animated life. Milner's problem of how to restore painting and drawing to life was also central to the reflections of the great pioneer of modern abstract art, Wassily Kandinsky. Like Milner, Kandinsky sought to release painting from the constraints of the figurative, to escape the bondage of objects and their imagistic representations so as to reveal the inner necessity of affective animated life, of the inner movement of becoming that is so readily obscured by its outward objective forms. So I found this very compelling as an argument that, you know, to only represent something as an object, one may lose the dynamism of that place. And one example that I would say I've seen of this kind of representation in regards to sacred sites is this particular example here. This is a rock painting which is attributed to San people in southern Africa and it is in the rain snake shelter in Lesotho. And what we see in this drawing is something that's alive and something that's dynamic. The idea here is that the people are in a spiritual space. And in this space, they are busy trying to drag this sacred snake out of the space. And you can see that the sacred snake is coiled and it's sort of almost. in my view anyway, implying a sense of movement or vitality or life. And there are all these lines. And according to the one San individual who interpreted this for anthropologists, those lines are all meant to represent living creatures like fish. So this whole scene is happening underneath. water. So this rain animal, this snake is being pulled out of the water perhaps so that it can be killed so that there can be rain. But for me, this snake could also represent the climate or the weather or forces in nature, including these lions, you know. So this has been a very important drawing for me to kind of... capture the idea of a place that's got meaning, a way of representing a place having meaning and the landscape having meaning. So another very important drawing that I looked at that influenced me is also from San culture. And in this case, the drawing is on a rock face. This is obviously a tracing of the drawing, but the original one is on a rock face. And these dotted lines represent a cleft on the rock. And so these mythological creatures are moving between two realms. They're moving between the physical realm of our reality, which is essentially the rock face, and the mythological world. So you can see how some of them are sort of moving into the rock and, you know, some of those fish are behind that black blob. But for me, again, this kind of gave a representation of something that's dynamic, that embeds the meaning and the culture of people within it. So through that, I began to think about ways of representing the different ritual spaces in my hometown and in my community of Guruman. So Guruman is in... the northern Cape province of South Africa. It's the, on the left, it's the dot just near the border of Botswana and on the right is sort of a map that shows the various locations that we'll be talking about. So right at the top at the north is the Lohobati cave which is very just along the river. These rivers are generally dried up now but you know during different seasons there might be water there. The second one is Khamohana Shelter, which is closer to where I grew up and was the shelter that I was really told about the most in my upbringing. And then right at the bottom is Vanuva Cave, which is the one that I showed you just earlier that has been scanned using laser scanning. So one of the most important things about this landscape, it's its relationship to mythology. And one of the main mythical characters is a mythical snake. So some of these quotes are quotes that describe the way in which people perceive the snake. The first quote comes from a paper by Michael Chazen. And what he said... people said about the snake was that people had to show the snake respect though but he assured us it would not hurt us since we did not believe in it. The second quote comes from some field work that I did. When I used to live there by the river I would often meet a giant snake. It would be coiled up in my path but I would simply go around it and go and fetch water and when I returned from collecting the water the snake would leave and one would see it going up the river, up the banks of the river. I was still very young and had no fear of the snake. And then just this final quote, which I got from another member of my community, close member of my community. She says that the snake has often has taken me before. And this idea of being taken by the snake is a very common thing that people say in my community. Taken by taken me before nearly when I was a child. I went out with one of the old ladies from my village. When I went out to look after the sheep, we went out to look after the sheep, I suddenly had a very deep thirst. So I decided to go towards the stream. When I got there, I heard a child crying. I saw something in the water. It looked like two arms coming out from under, the arms of a child. I went near to pull the child out. I pulled hard but could not get the child out. Suddenly I got pulled into the water. It was the snake pretending to be a child. The old woman I was with yelled, help me, help her, please. Someone help her. The snake is taking her. The snake took me to a large cave, but it didn't take me deep. I became unconscious and suddenly I woke up by the water, by the water hole next to the village inside the clinic where we usually collect water. I could not remember how I got there. If the snake took me, I would have been a powerful healer. This lady is actually a very powerful healer, so there's always ambiguity in the stories that she tells. I know the snake. I've seen it several times. I've seen it coiled up and large. And sometimes I would pass it and touch its hand. As a child, I would sleep with one on my left or top, because one time I ask her about the story, she'll say on top. Next time she says at the bottom and on my right bottom. and I always talk to the snake. So sometimes when people perceive or see dust devils or whirlwinds, they would say that the snake is passing and this is a very common thing that people say in my community. And so the snake is usually associated with all kinds of destructive forces or malevolent forces. in our environment. These are drawings that I collected from the field when I was doing field work. These are specifically by one character, one person called Buru in my hometown and he's known for wielding snakes. He's got many snakes at his house but he drew these drawings about the snake. So you can see that similar to the sand painting that I showed earlier that the snake is seen as a Therianthrope which is a creature that is half human half person. But even now when I look at these drawings, they are very disturbing for me because of how often I've been told these stories about the snake from a very young age. And you know, you could think of that as priming. And so these are his interpretations or representations of the snake. I did these drawings when I was thinking about what kind of feelings I get when I think about this snake. So this snake is not for me a friendly character. It's actually, in spite of all the rational reason and Western education that I have, I think because of being primed and conditioned by my community about the snake from a very young age, I still feel very uncomfortable. when I talk about it, let alone visiting as I have the sites where the snake lives. So these drawings are really ways of me trying to express the way I feel about this snake. So the following places that I'm going to talk about are actually all homes for the snake. That's where people in the community believe the snake lives. So the first place I'm going to talk about is Lohobate Cave, which has got the red circle around it in this image. So this is Lohobate Cave. Well, you can't really see the cave in this image because, you know, as a visitor and somebody who's not an initiate, I would not be given access to the space to go any closer than this to the space. But it's a space that's unknown to all the non-initiates in the community. So it's a space that's kept secret. And it's a space where the snake resides. So the place is a place where teenage initiation happens at this particular cave. And like I said, it's hidden away from the community. So that's around, by that circle, that's where the actual cave is. This is more or less a sort of general proximity of where the cave is because I haven't been initiated, so I don't know exactly where that cave is. So in this community... Girls are told about the snake just like I was told about the snake from a very young age. And in the case of this particular, the story in this particular place, what they are told from a young age is that the snake steals twins, young twins, sort of children, and it drags them into the river and it kills them. You know, the snake is not by any means friendly and has any mercy, it basically kills. And so young girls are told about this from a very young age. This particular map is generated using Google SketchUp. And so it's a way in which I've been trying to experiment with this idea of representation of this particular place. So in this diagram, which has deliberately been filtered like this, you're looking at people performing a ritual just in front of the cave. So it's further in the background. And so they'll perform the ritual sort of in proximity to the river and the cave. So this space is far away from the actual village. So which is... typically falls within the model of ritual practice. You know, a person is taken away from their ordinary setting and taken to a secluded place, which obviously is something that increases the potency of this entire experience. You know, being taken sometimes late at night or early in the morning into an unfamiliar space. And so this is myself and one of the... ladies who took me to the site and just standing in proximity to that space, I felt really, really scared. I mean, I was even there with two other friends of mine who didn't grow up, you know, knowing about the snake or being primed in the same way, but by virtue of them having heard the little that they've heard and the sort of body language of this lady, it sort of became very difficult to even dare to move closer in spite of the fact that we all are. so-called rational beings and you know we don't really believe that there's a snake there. And so when these little girls or these young girls eventually go through initiation, where do they go for initiation? They go to this very space. The space that they've been told about their whole lives is a place where the snake resides. And so what I said earlier about the manner in which trauma is required in order to dissolve the boundaries of the self, to break down the self. In this case, the snake and it being a story that's been told to these people and being located at the river immediately becomes the trauma that's required for the girls to break down the old self in order to take up a new position in society. So this is just one of the quotes from the elders who... sometimes visits the cave. She says during a ceremony, the elders would walk up the path in intervals, praying to the ancestors while they pause and proceed in this manner until they reach the cave. So you can see there what is beginning to come out is that humility is one of the ways in which one can successfully cross the river without being killed by the snake. So in... essence the landscape becomes a representation of the psychological landscape. So the psychological boundary is represented spatially and that's what gives this place meaning. And so this is my attempt, the first drawing I'll show you, my attempt of trying to represent this space and its mythological qualities. And so through this, I mean obviously this is my own expression of what this boundary feels like, this mythological boundary feels like. But through this, this is a way in which I'm trying to explore what this place may, the layer of meaning that one may put on top of this map in order to begin to try and bring out the myth or the story and the way in which the space is defined by that mythological boundary of fear. how one can represent that visually. So this will be one of the first drawings that I'll show you where I'm attempting to demonstrate how one could try and represent this. So the next shelter that I'm going to talk about is Khamohana. And Khamohana is where, now this particular shelter is close to where I grew up. And so if I were initiated in this community, I would have ended up being initiated at Khamohana Cave. But... because I was obviously then taken out of my community to go to school and university and that sort of thing. And, you know, due to just my parents being generally more westernized, I didn't end up becoming initiated. But if I had been initiated, this is the place that I would have gone to because the priming that I went through was associated to this particular space. So that's the landscape and Khamo Hana Hill is... what you're looking at in the background there. And so this is again another Google Map generated 3D terrain of the place. And what we know about this particular landscape is that along the line in the middle represents a river. On the left is the actual community or village and on the right by the hill is the ritual space. And all along this river there are rock engravings and these motifs of the snake. And so if one were to apply the model that we just looked at from the previous space, one can then say that that river could be seen as well as a ritual threshold. Now this is speculative because I've never actually seen people cross that river as the mythological threshold but What I have seen is crossing this river just on a day-to-day basis with people from at home, there's been many expressions of discomfort. You know, every time people cross by where there are reeds and that sort of thing, you know, people will say, oh, you know, we're going to cross over where the snake is. And sometimes people have gone as far as saying, can you use a different route? Because that's where the snake is. So from that sense, then one could see that river as a... mythological boundary between the village and the actual ritual space. So again in an attempt to try and represent this mythological boundary, this image is precisely trying to do that where the river is kind of represented with these creatures that for me represent the snake and then on the right that's where the actual ritual space is. So another thing that I have been trying to do with these 3D surfaces is see them as the way in which I described earlier the rock face as a as a threshold between the spirit world and our world. So the 3D surface being that thin is meant to be that veil between the two different worlds. So when we come into the actual space, this is how the rock shelter looks, the ritual space. I've taken students there now regrettably several times. Regrettably because initiates are meant to go to this place. And, you know, if I take a group of 100 architecture students there, when people are meant to have terrifying fear of the place, that in itself reduces the... value of the place as a ritual space. But I also think that the actual form of the space, the size of it, all lends itself to creating the right kind of conditions to induce as much fear in the ritual participants as possible. Because like we said, the fear is meant to break down the self so that there's a possibility for transition, for transformation, for connection. and change. And so this is again another 3D terrain and that black line is actually where the shelter is. There's two shelters on the site. There's one more on the north face and then there's one at the south face. And this is the main ritual space. I won't show you this too much and again it's been veiled primarily for reasons to respect the space. Again, this photograph has been fragmented in this way for the same reasons, but what we are looking at here are different indications of ritual use in this space, the candles, the picture on the far right, it's not very clear, but they're rock finger paintings on the surface of this space. And one can see on the picture on the left, all the different indications of fire. So you can imagine the kind of experience people are having in this place late at night, being told about the snake, having been primed their whole lives, the kind of experience that they'll be having. So on the left side, the dot there represents another part of the overall structure of the space, which is these large dolomitic rocks that have these rock engravings on them as well. So these are also these kind of snake motifs on the rock engravings. And so again, if one were to apply the same model that I applied with the previous two, the person would then have to cross that area in order to encounter the snake. and break through that fear or break through that priming that they've had their whole lives and hopefully not be killed by the snake. So another quote from people who have been there, talking about the process of moving through the space. This happens until one reaches the end of the cave where the offering would be placed down. At the end of the cave, one would pick up a small stone and tap the rock on the wall of the cave, known as the breast, and water or milk. would begin to drip out. This water is then drunk and praises are given to the ancestors in hope to find good fortune. So again, We see here that one of the ways in which you move through the space is through humility. And humility is, it seems, is what allows one to be able to survive the snake. So once again, the psychological boundary is represented spatially. And this is going to be the second last drawing where, again, I'm trying to visually represent this. this boundary, this psychological boundary, which is the place where the, or the threshold, which is the place where the snake resides. One other thing I didn't mention in these drawings are these sort of lines, which what I was trying to do there is I was trying to refer back to Tim Ingold's little squiggle of the of the salmon and the whirlwind as well because you know one of the things that I'm trying to bring back in these drawings is that vitality or that sense of movement in the landscape. I mean right now all we have in architecture to really represent vital or forces in our environment are when one looks at passive climate design drawings. you'll sort of do a little blue squiggle to represent wind moving through the building, you know, or a gradient between blue and yellow, blue and red to represent heat gain or heat loss. So not much work has actually been done in regards to how one represents the lived or the animated environment in which our buildings are embedded. And I think to leave that to, I don't know who came up with those kind of... drawings, but to just leave that up to those people is not enough. So I think that's a legitimate research project. So defining the snake, the snake is dangerous and does what it will. It is more powerful than people. The snake is responsible for all the malignant forces, destructive winds, drownings, bad luck, and sickness in our world. One's best defense against it is through respect. Besides, we can't fight it. The ritual sites are where people face the snake. Initiates with the most respect, the most diminished egos, learn to cross the threshold and become capable of dealing with the snake and thus becoming adults. Now they can face the contingent forces of the world. So the last site I'm going to look at is Vonneveg Cave and this site out of all of them is known to be a very well researched archaeological site. And due to it being an archaeological site, or maybe partly due to it being an archaeological site, the way in which local people engage this place is slightly different. It's also associated to the snake. One of the archaeologists who works there, Michael Chazen, told me that he was told by some men who came here for some ritual practices that the snake that lives in this particular cave takes you and takes you all the way to Chicago. Once it takes you to Chicago, it makes you sin, endlessly sinning in Chicago, and then brings you back so that you can die and go to hell for eternity. So obviously that's another terrifying story associated to this place. And so this is just an image of the inside of the cave. And there's a new walkway that's been built in the cave. I'm not going to get too much into a discussion about this walkway. But, you know, the one thing that I will say is that I think the walkway should have been, there should have been more engagement with the community to determine what should actually be done in fires. This walkway is... concerned. I understand why it's there. It's there because they're trying to protect the archaeology. But in protecting the archaeology, they kind of, for me, forgot to consider the local cultural value of the space. And so this is another sort of site map of the area. And what I'm proposing with this specific site, because right now, like I said, it's only a research site. What I'm proposing is that, and I'm going to try and do this with my students in the next quarter, is that something be done in order to bring back the ritual value of the space using the same model that we've just looked at in the previous examples. This is a 3D scan, one of the ones that I spoke about earlier, of the actual cave. So this is obviously the cave outside of the context of being embedded within the hill. And so the question is, what kind of ways could we as architects think about designing the experience and designing whatever one needs to do in order to bring back the model that we've been talking about, about thresholds? which embody this moment where one faces the snake. So this is the front of the cave which already has rock paintings. You know we're not 100% sure how old they are and who made them but these rock paintings for me give the space potency. And so the rest of the cave has archaeological excavations and there's been damage that's been done there previous to the archaeological excavations. which in my opinion has made the space lose its potency. And I would like to propose a way in which that potency of the space and the narrative of the snakes could be brought back into this cave. So this is how it looks on the inside. On the left, the damage was caused by guano mining. And this is the old walkway. I don't include the new walkway because the walkway can actually be removed. It was designed in such a way that it could be disassembled and taken out. So this is how it currently looks. One of my big problems is the way it's lit. I mean, you know, it being lit like this, how does that make reference to its cultural value? You know, how does the fear of the snake, which is such an important and integral part of the maturation of a young man or a young woman, or the process of diminishing the ego, how is that happening when there's all these floodlights inside the space? So my suggestion is to not use floodlights like that and to introduce some kind of an element, perhaps still using light because one really doesn't want to damage the space, but perhaps using light to begin to create the same kind of potentially potent ritual experience. when one is moving into the cave. The back of the cave is incredibly dark, so I would propose something that requires very little intervention towards the back of the cave, except at least for someone to be able to see where they're walking. But this for me is the kind of architectural intervention that undoes some of the things that have happened due to not anyone's fault per se. or maybe one could say it's ignorance, but for me this is a way of looking at decolonizing architecture, deliberately coming up with interventions that undo some of the things that undermined the cultural value of people who, you know, have long lived in this landscape. So one of the projects that we're doing now is trying to bring the community back. You know, this was in collaboration with archaeologists. So, you know, I really credit them because they are trying to open up ways of engaging the different values of this space and not just see it as an archaeological site. But, you know, the people who are here right now are not necessarily seeing this space as a ritual space. So there could be new ways of. engaging it, new meaning that's placed upon the space. I would imagine that some of them are probably still very scared of being there. And some of them probably wouldn't want to go to the back of the cave by themselves because of fear of the snake. And so this was an attempt for us to take back that space as the local community. And so these These are the three sketches or the three drawings that I'm saying are my attempt of trying to find ways of representing the meaning that the local community, some of them, not all of them, I mean, let's not for one second think that everyone in this community values or perceives or even understands this mythical snake. It's a mining community. There are many people from different places, but there are still many people who do. value that particular aspect of the place. And so these drawings for me are beginning of this discussion and you know I foresee myself going through this kind of process. into the future even more. And out of these drawings, going back to this, I've learned some lessons about what the issues with this particular drawing was initially. And one of the big issues here is that the human being or the person that's in the foreground here is witnessing or is in front of this contingent world. So this contingent world, one could say, is the snake. The snake is contingency itself. It's change. And so in order for the human being to be in unison with this contingent world, humility is what I've learned from studying these spaces. So this diagram then would capture better what a mythological representation of my home. But even one last step further. is that not everyone in this place is completely in tune with this type of mythological worldview. Not everyone has one particular mythological worldview. I mean it's already a contentious thing to want to represent mythological worldview or any sort of worldview because my worldview is not going to be the same as anyone else from my hometown. But as an exercise and as an attempt, This is what I'm presenting forward. But Kuruman has been colonized and it has had missionaries come there. And similar to everyone else in Kuruman, I'm Christian, but I also at the same time am still terrified of the snake. And so a real representation of the mythological landscape of Kuruman would include the Christian worldview as part of the entire schema. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Mappei, for that fascinating lecture and for sharing your experiences and research with us. If it's okay, I can go through some of the questions now. So I'll just work through the chat box. And if anyone has any questions, please feel free to type them into the chat box. The first question I have is, how old is this community and how old is the culture? So, I mean, I'm not sure how one would really answer that. Because people, there's evidence of hominids living in this area for millions of years. One of the caves that has been recently, one of the spaces that has been recently studied, which I've been part of, I've been co-editor, co-author in one of the papers, there's been finding of middle stone age artifacts. So the these artifacts go back, I guess, about 200, 300,000 years ago. And so, I mean, you'd have to be very specific about that question. The missionaries arrived, I guess, in the 1800s. You know, the Tswana people arrived there probably around the Iron Age. And so people have been living here for millions of years. Thank you for that response. Just scrolling through, lots of wonderful praises about the lecture and fascinating studies. There's one comment here that leads to a question that says, beautiful presentation. Ritual, in the case of initiation, happens against the backdrop of natural spaces, archaeological sites. Understandably so, which often are phenomenological in experience spaces have an intangible quality of sacredness etc if architects are able to create and shape and we as people are trust thrust into the urban jungle cities without them necessarily having experienced fears or trauma is there an opportunity for initiation to occur in urban spaces So this is the kind of experiment I'll be doing with my students next semester. So what I'm planning on doing is for them to design. a similar type of space using this sort of model at the Wannoweg Cave as a way of remedying what I think is problematic with that place. But then I'm going to get them to try and do something similar in Bromfontein in Johannesburg, which is an urban area. And so through that kind of experiment, you know, we'd like to see what might happen if... you know, if we were to introduce these kind of spaces in urban areas. So it's something that we're going to try and explore. Sounds fascinating. Can't wait to hear the results. The next question here is, is it ideal to support a tradition that has made people live in fear? Is it, sorry, say that again? Is it ideal to support a tradition that has made people live in fear? Well, I think at the end of the day, it is up to that community to decide what they want to do. You know, they are autonomous. And I mean, I could critique the West for all kinds of stuff that they do, isn't it? You know. we could critique. And I think that's actually a fundamentally different worldview because as far as people where I'm from are concerned, the stick rather than the carrot is important, you know, but that's a different worldview. And so rather than us asking whether it's good or bad to support that, I think it should be about whether we respect each other's cultures. I mean, it's like basically me asking, you know, should we respect the Chinese for their culture? You know what I'm saying? So I don't know whether we should promote it or not promote it. Who are we or who is that person to decide whether they're promoting it or not promoting it? You know, we should all be, we should all respect that. And what's... what's also very important to realize is that this is probably the oldest and most prevalent practice across the world. So this is not just something that happens here in Africa and in my home community. If you look at African masks from all across Africa, they were used in rituals of initiation and these things look terrifying. My wife is from Zambia and in Zambia they've got something called the chingao. And the Chinyao, you know, little girls or little children would see men in masks, wearing these masks in the community with whips, and they would chase these children around the community with these whips. And for initiation, you're going to be caught by one of these Chinyaos that you've been primed to fear your whole life. But for me, out of all of this, people then learn how to, I think the point is, The whole point is to have an assault on the ego. The ego is the problem. And so all of these methods are to deal with the ego. So, you know, again, it's up to communities how they render that experience. Great, absolutely. The next series of questions comes from... Joseph. He says, good day. I am a post-grad student from the University of Pretoria, and I apologize for the pronouncing. The project I am currently investigating in contextually sits in the great Zimbabwe heritage landscape, and the project I deal with questions excavation and heritage. I ask three questions. If there is a curatorial architecture in or on and under the site, how does one meditative program towards end users. The next question is, and how can one explain that an intervention enhances deep heritage site instead of detracting from its richness? Furthermore, I enjoyed your exonometric drawings, but what would happen if these are realized at one-to-one scale in relation to the site as something spatial instead of representational? Lastly, should representation necessarily be removed from the site knowing that the documentation of these sacred sites are often misrepresented in their significance such as in great Zimbabwe. So Okay, so let me see if I can find that question. You might have to just repeat the first one. I deal with the first one and then we just move on like that, please. Absolutely. So the first question is, if there was a curatorial architecture in, on and under the site, how does one mitigate a program towards end users? So that's the big question, really. And I think linked to what the other question was about, instead of it just being drawings, if it was actual spaces, that's actually the big question. I mean, these representations were the first opportunity or the first way in which one starts, or at least I have started thinking about this. Because I know that as far as a built project is concerned, that's going to take time. And so I went through this kind of exercise to begin to think about that. But like I said, my plan is to engage these sites with students to see what they will produce. So I don't have the answers about how one actually goes about doing this, because how often have we, you know, engaged spaces that have lost or in which the cultural value has been undermined and then tried to reverse that process or at least. move on from that process? How often has that happened? That's not something that is done very often, I think, or at least here in South Africa, it's not something that's done very often. So, and particularly with these sort of ritual spaces. So it's a new thing. And I think it's something that, yeah, I mean, for me, it's basically what I see my career being all about. The next question was, hmm. And how can one explain that an intervention enhances deep heritage sites instead of detracting from its richness? Detracting from its richness. You know, so who was the first person to make a mark on that site? Those were my ancestors, the people who made the mark on those sites. So I'm well within my right to make a mark on that site myself. I'm well within my right as long as I think it's done rigorously and carefully to engage that site and to continue my culture. And so I think that's what I'll say in regards to that. Absolutely. The next part of the question was, furthermore, I enjoyed your exonometric drawings, but what would happen if these were realized at one-to-one scale? Sure. So that's what I was saying is that that's what hopefully we can do going forward. Right. Okay, so I'm going to move on to the next question. Your drawing style is quite interesting. How do you determine it specifically? Do you admire a specific artist or gain inspiration and make it your own? So like I said, a lot of my influence comes from the, you know, the, I would say, art of the pre-colonial San hunter gatherer people of Southern Africa. I've been studying the art for many years now, visited many many of the sites, there are many of them in South Africa, and so I think maybe that's what's influenced my work a lot. Thank you. We still have quite a few questions. The next is from Darcy, and it says that, I'm really curious about your research and process, particularly your selection of ways of thinking that integrate what is, as part of the fuller picture. For example, selections of phenomenological to expand the idea of human experience beyond neural activity. When it comes, so much of the world is about reducing to simplify scientific principles. Continuing on. So places are representative of all emotions, all histories, instead of curated ones that the idea, architectural work can cross realms. Do you have recommendations for students that want to expand their thinking beyond reductionism and develop broader minds? Yeah, that's the whole point. I think, you know, like the other person said earlier, who was saying, should we promote fear and that sort of thing? I think reductionism and that sort of thing is actually a Western culture. you know, in my view. And so if we are looking for other ways using different worldviews and different models to explore architecture, I think, yeah, maybe that's how we can get to that. I mean, that's why I went through this process was because I wanted to see if by looking at the worldview of the people where I come from, what kind of art... what kind of spaces, what kind of things I could create. That was the whole point of that. So, yes, you know, one thing that I've always said is that in South Africa we need more African scholars, PhD graduates, exploring these kind of things. Currently, as far as I know, there are three of us, doctoral African, South Africans in architecture and you can imagine the more there are, the more these kind of things will be explored. So that's a big project that needs to get underway is increasing the academic intellectual body of African architects. Thank you. Perhaps we'll take one or two more questions. We're about five minutes, we have about five minutes left. The next question is Are there other rituals and spiritual animals in Kuremen besides the snake that the people showed respect to? Yeah, so there are many different groups of people in Kuruman. You know, the snake is just one of the most, how can I say, enduring myths. But, you know, in Kuruman, there are people who... value the monkey or the baboon, they're called batwining. There are batlaping, which batlaping, klapi refers to fish. So there are different groups that those are specifically tsuwanas, but you know their relationship to those totems are not, it's not necessarily the same as in this case where that particular mythological entity is about. you know, inducing a particular emotional state. So they're more sort of identity, related to identity, totemic identity. Great, thank you. So maybe we'll end off on one more question. Thank you for your presentation. In what way does this could influence architectural design, hence shaping tradition architecture in the present time? Yeah, that's the big question. That's exactly the point. You know, it's just saying we've got a lot of work to do. Imagine, like I said, you know, 50 more people doing these kind of experiments. I mean, that one image that I showed about the potential of doing something in that cave. I mean, I'm imagining doing something with lights, you know, something that sort of animates the inside of the cave. something that's very light that can be removed if it's not working. You know, it could be an amazing experiment. And so, yeah, I think there's a lot of work to do. Thank you so much. That was so fascinating. I think there are a few final words that I'll pass it on to before we end the lecture for today. Okay, so yeah, Mark Sachaba, thank you very much for a very provocative talk. And I think that the questions speak for themselves in terms of what you're actually trying to do and what you're trying to open our minds up to. I had quite a lot of closing remarks, but I think a lot of them have been covered in the question and answer session. But just the one point that I want to make is that, you know, there's a lot of talk about transformation in architectural studies. And often it revolves around kind of diversity, equity and access. And that kind of cuts it down to sort of access and demographics and that. Whereas I think that the much more important question is the one that you're posing, which is about how we decolonize the curriculum. And that is not about, you know, just switching it to something else, but really opening up the discussion and enabling many, many different ideas. and bringing many different views and voices to the table. And I think that what's really required is that we all kind of participate in this discussion because, you know, we're all part of this world and there are many different views. And I think that we should be open to these discussions. They are hard discussions to have, but we should be open to them so that we don't end up limiting our own worldviews, you know, by just what we think is the convention and the tradition and what is right. I think that... what you've shown us that there's a whole other richness by being open to this kind of discussion and I think that this leads into you know Douglas has an idea about actually bringing the whole idea of decolonizing curriculums across the globe because I think these discussions are being held everywhere and so I think it's very pertinent and I think your talk has been a really good kind of probe. for all of us to start thinking about and bringing these discussions to a much, much greater audience. So thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Great, thank you. So, um, I'll just pass it to Douglas. Did you have any final? Um, thank you. Thank you, Veronica. I just wanted to say thank you as well. Um, It's been wonderful to see everybody again online. I'm hoping that we can continue to do this again and again and again. And as I said, if you or your institution is interested in participating in the idea of the Global Studio, please contact one of us from Athabasca or at Open Architecture or at CPUT or any of the other groups that we've talked to. I think what we're seeing is a tremendous interest and a tremendous opportunity. So I'm... very much looking forward to our next event and our next get together, which we will post as soon as we're sort of just lining things up and we will post that as soon as we know. But if you also have ideas, we'd be interested in hearing them. But finally, just to thank Dr. Mappe again, it was a wonderful presentation. And certainly I think we all learned a tremendous amount. So it's been another tremendous experience for us all. So thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you. I guess with that, we'll shut it down. But we'll look forward to everybody joining us again very soon. Thanks, everyone. Thanks. Thank you again, Dr. Mappe. That was just so fascinating. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. Bye, Kristen. Chat to you just now. Yeah, let's chat now. Okay. I'm going to keep zoom running because if I log off, I think I shut the meeting down. So I'll just keep it running for a couple more seconds. Thanks Veronica for all your help with this and thanks Kristen as well. It's a

both the reasons that it's going to be very, very interesting, but also because it's done in partnership with Open Architecture, who is sponsoring today's lecture. So thank you very much to Open Architecture. But the success of the last three events that we've held in the virtual lecture series have suggested that we actually could do something on a global basis together. And what we're kicking around now is the idea of a global studio, which might have activities extending over the course of an entire year.

which we would invite everybody who's online and everybody's institutions to be part of. We are going to apply for a grant here in Canada, which we would like to share. If there's ways that you want to contribute, we're certainly not going to turn down cash or in-kind contributions, but it's not a deal breaker.

Whatever you can bring to the table, we would be interested in hearing from you. We don't just want to do lectures. We would like to have activities where students are engaged with... perhaps even creating things, perhaps even creating curriculum. We'd like to do activities and workshops and other kinds of things.

And some of the themes that we've talked about, and I think they're all critically important, are regenerative design, universal design, and also the very serious issue of decolonizing our design education, which is something we're all looking into now and we'd like to work together on. But at the same time, so if that's of interest, please let one of us know. Kristen or Veronica or myself or Lone or any of the people who've been involved with this, if that's something that you might want to participate in, we'd love to see it.

But the other thing we want to try and do over the last few weeks, as we've all sort of been hunkered down in our homes and not able to do too much, I've started actually playing music with friends who are in Toronto. Now, I'm in Kelowna. They're in Toronto.

That's about 3000 kilometers away. It's not always great. But what I wanted to say is if there's other architect musicians out there who might want to try a global jam, I'd be very interested in seeing if we could make this work as well. I guarantee you the sound quality is not going to be wonderful, but the sense of community would be. So if that's of interest to you, please let me know.

And just to let you know, Veronica Madonna has stepped in for He San, who's organized the other one. So thank you very much, Veronica. and she's going to moderate the questions.

So if you have a question for Dr. Mappe today, please put it into the chat. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Lone Paulson from Open Architecture. Lone? Thank you very much.

Yes, so I'm Lone Paulson. I'm the program director for an entity called Open Architecture. So Open Architecture is not an educational institution as such. It's really an initiative of the South African Institute of Architects as part of their transformation program.

And it was set up to try and find flexible part-time and blended ways for people who had some qualification in architecture already who wanted to complete their studies and become full-on architects, but were unable to return to full-time studies. So we were looking to collaborate with institutions to try and set up part-time programs. And from 2014 to 2019 we collaborated with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology on a graduate program which has been very successful and in fact this year CPUT adopted that mode of teaching into their kind of mainstream offering because they found that this part-time blended program worked very well.

And as it turns out, with the COVID happening, it was really fortuitous in a way that they had shifted over to that. So currently we're looking and discussing with various institutions about master's, honors and master's programs. And that's really how we got involved with this group of institutions who participated in this global series, because we were looking for other institutions who were doing similar things.

And it was really. Wonderful to be able to team up with people who were facing the same kinds of challenges. had successes, had experience that we could draw on as well.

So it's been very wonderful to be part of this collaboration. And as Douglas said earlier, also that it's now morphed into this kind of global lecture series, which is really fantastic to be able to share lectures with people from all over the world. Prior to joining Open Architecture, I was actually at Wits University in Johannesburg.

20 years and was the architecture program director for a while. And I first met Sachaba when he applied to enter first year studies. And I've sort of been watching his progress ever since then, both as an architect, as a researcher, and also as a teacher and academic. And it's been really wonderful to see his growth over the years. So when Kristen, who has an association with the University of...

suggested that we should invite Sachaba to give this lecture, we jumped at the opportunity to not only be a co-sponsor but also to highlight issues and challenges and research that is going on in South Africa. And I believe that what Sachaba will share with us today is really highlighting the kind of broad spectrum of issues and challenges in academic curriculum questions that are being asked all over the world at the moment around issues of culture, identity and the meaning of space. But I'm going to hand over to Kristen now to actually introduce Sachaba because she's been working with him over the last number of years and is more familiar with the work that he's going to present.

So Kristen, if you'd like to introduce Sachaba. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. Sechava and I decided to introduce this in a bit of a different way, both to honor the topic that he's presenting and also to address the fact that we all bring ourselves into architecture. And so we're starting with a bit of the story of our history. But before I get to that, I'd like to observe the ancient protocol of gathering in the place where I live.

that the people speaking tell the connection to their place. When I'm not in Johannesburg, I stay beside a lake in the vast Shuswap watershed, lands that have been the home of the Sekwepem people for over 10 millennia. I acknowledge that I'm a settler and a guest on these lands. When Europeans arrived in this region of Western Canada in the late 1700s, no treaties were ever signed in legal agreement of occupation.

My family came to Turtle Island in the 1600s. Turtle Island, to most of you, is better recognized in today's political mapping as Mexico, the United States, and Canada. So with this timeline, I acknowledge my own lineage that is deeply woven into the colonization of this continent.

In 2007, I arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa on a Fulbright grant and with an award-winning design. I often tell people that that year introduced me to my own Western arrogance. I stayed and did my PhD at BITS.

It was then that I met Sachaba and our extraordinary friendship took hold. Its depths was honored earlier this year when I became the godmother to he and San's baby, Agape. That friendship has been filled with long conversations, generally not at work, but instead over meals or coffee, amidst great music on road trips. walking in sun-baked landscapes, and quietly whispered in the sacred caves of his home region of Kuruman.

Together we have stretched our thinking around humanity and the human occupying of space. Seychalba'framing of his ongoing spatial understanding cuts across such disciplines as architecture, anthropology, archaeology, neurophenomenology, environmental psychology, and embodiment. His work explores the relationships between self-induced trauma, ritual, adaptability, and belonging. It is embedded in some of the local beliefs from his home town as practices of place attachment.

Our conversations challenge my own limitations in my understanding of architecture as defined by white ideologies. Place is a subjective experience that we all recognize as a deep part of our understanding of architecture. Expanding world views will stretch that understanding.

Today, Seychalba will share with us a way of seeing and being in and rendering living landscapes that is deeply grounded in his relationship with the elders of Kuruman. his rigorous architectural training, and his own personal journey as he grapples with the ancient and contemporary role of ritual as mediator to psychological and physical attachment to place. His practice pushes back at a colonized architecture in his own native South Africa, yet has such relevance far beyond those boundaries of state. It is working to retrieve meaning in those sacred and precarious spaces that are in danger of being lost or hijacked or undervalued.

It is with great pleasure and humility that I introduce Sechab today so that he can have one of these great conversations with all of you. But before I hand over to him, I want to read a short poem from the Black Lives Matter collection of the American Academy of Poets, simply because poetry I find opened my mind, allowing it to take things in in a different way. Ode to a Head Nod by Elizabeth Acevedo. The slight angling of the forehead, neck extension, quick jut of chin, meeting the stranger's eyes, a gilded curtsy to the sun fill in another, in yourself, tithe of respect.

In an early version, the copy editor deleted the word head from the title. The copy editor said it's implied. The copy editor means well. The copy editor means.

She is only fluent in one language of gestures. I do not explain. I feel sad for her.

Limited understanding of greetings. And maybe this is why my acknowledgements are so long. Didn't we learn this early?

To look at a white space and find the color. Thank God, oh thank God, for you are here. And with that, I'll turn it over to Sechava. Okay, thank you very much, Kristen.

And thank you everyone for coming to listen to this talk. I feel very honored. And after many, many years, I can finally share all of these ideas that I've kept to myself.

So let me start. The title of my talk is Drawing Creepy Places, Representing Liminal Ritual Spaces in Guruman. South Africa. So I'm going to start with just a brief background of the study and then I'm going to talk also very briefly about representation of sacred spaces. Then I'm going to go into three case studies which is three caves in my home region of Kuruman.

One is called Lohobati Cave. the other one, Khamohana Cave, and then Vonovag Cave. Two of these caves are currently research sites that are being researched by, in fact, one Canadian university and another researcher who is originally from Wits, an American researcher who's originally from Wits and now is, I think, in Australia.

And they have, they are places that have lots of rich archaeological finds, but at the same time they are ritual sacred spaces for the local people. So in terms of the background of the study, I started off the study as a PhD and the main finding of my PhD was that In order for people to adapt to change, especially climate change or environmental change, rituals played a significant role. They facilitated some kind of synchronicity between the self and the environment.

So as far as diagrams were concerned, as far as representing these ideas were concerned, this diagram on the right was the only one that I actually had throughout my entire PhD. as an architect. I know that's terrible and that's very disappointing.

But there was a parallel study that was happening in my sketchbooks where I was actually trying to represent this particular diagram in a visual style that would much better capture what I was trying to say. So before I show you that, I want to just quickly discuss That's the theoretical framework that I used. So I... Spent a lot of time looking at anthropology Work by anthropologists such as Victor Turner. I'm sure everyone knows Turner Ivan von Gannett and Joseph Campbell And you know, all of them have done these sort of cross-cultural studies of what rituals are They looked at various practices from around the world and consolidated them and sort of had a model of what rituals are So that was part of the theoretical framework.

The next element of the theoretical framework was neuroscience. And there are some neuroscientists who have begun looking at ritual practice. I mean, I first came across this idea of looking at neuroscience through David Lewis Williams, who many people who know anything about rock art in South Africa would know about David Lewis Williams. He studied the way in which people who undergo trance eventually do drawings that express their experiences in trance. And he cites the brain and the functioning of the brain as the reason why some of these drawings turned out the way they were.

Although there are other hypotheses, that was his main hypothesis. I use neuroscience as a way of also trying to understand the way rituals work in relation to the brain. So entoptic phenomena are one of the kind of universal things that people have cited as part of the experiences that someone has during trance and ritual. And then finally, I used phenomenology, so hence cultural neurophenomenology, because the problem with just using neuroscience is that people tend to then make sort of experiences, human experiences reduced to neurons and, you know, just brain, electrical brain mechanisms.

So phenomenology obviously then takes into account the subjective experience of people. And so cultural neurophenomenology has been a study that tries to understand the sort of broader sense of what rituals are. So that was the theoretical framework that I used. So I don't want to bore you much more about that. So in this diagram, what I was trying to show is what is this process of ritual?

So according to the neuroscientific explanation, rituals are an excitation of the brain. So people induce some form of trauma upon themselves and through that inducing of trauma they allow the self to have potential to shift or to change. So in this diagram the first image at the top shows current perspective for instance that somebody has. Then through ritual excitation or you know some sort of dislodging happens and this is what we call the liminal phase in ritual. The neuroscientist Walter Freeman suspects that through these ritual practices, the chemical oxytocin is what's mobilized.

And that's what starts to allow for potential for shifting and changing and dissolving of the boundaries of the self. And then through San, through coming back into the community, the person is brought back or grounded again after that traumatic experience. So during this time, I was very much influenced and interested by Peter Rich's drawing on the left.

Now, Peter is here and he's joined us. And I've spoken to him several times trying to find out what this drawing is actually really about. I'm yet to hear it from him, what this drawing is specifically about. But for me personally, when I first saw it about... 10 maybe 12 years ago I think, I felt as if this drawing resonated with something within myself.

He called it a mythological representation of a mythological worldview of a high-felt tribe. Although representing the worldview of other people is obviously problematic, you know we could have a whole talk about that. This drawing was for me something that sparked a whole process of how one can begin to represent one's own worldview.

And in my case, I wanted to represent the worldview of my own people. But I used this drawing in my sketch as part of a way of engaging some of the ideas that I just spoke about regarding ritual. The drawing on the right is Pancho Geddes'drawing. And, you know, I think... I don't know whether Peter was influenced by this drawing or other drawings of Pancho's, but for me, the first person perspective of this drawing was what was compelling.

It really made me feel as if it opens up a framework to begin to talk about world view. And you know, in architecture, when you are coming from the context I'm coming from, no one really talks about the sort of hidden meaning behind things that you were accustomed to feeling as if have hidden meaning. You know, the world is perceived as objective.

But these kind of drawings began to make me feel as if I could engage my own worldview somehow. So then I began to do drawings such as this one, influenced by Peter, by Pancho. And in this drawing, I'm really trying to discover certain ways of putting together images to begin to describe the process that I spoke about regarding ritual.

So how do you represent the world changing and the human being or the self being reorganized as a process of responding to this changing world? So another one of these diagrams was this one. So I mean, these are just a sample.

I did many, many of these in my sketchbook parallel. to what I was doing in my PhD. They never made it into the PhD because, you know, I think at that time, I didn't quite see the value in them as much as I do today. This is yet again, another one of these diagrams where I was trying to explore. In this one, I was trying to explore the idea of intentionality or drawing your attention out into the world.

you know, and seeking for something in the world as opposed to having a world that's already made, an objective world that's already made. So the people inside the heads are a representation of ritual being what influences perception. So I wasn't satisfied with those drawings because they weren't really capturing what this diagram was trying to achieve. So what I ended up doing is I turned the diagram onto its side like this, and that started to open up an opportunity for me to really begin to explore the potential to begin to describe the relationship between the self and the world. And so in this diagram, it's meant to represent the changing self being inside a changing world.

And Ritual being that which mediates between the changing self and the changing world. So I use that same model or that same framework to try and speak about the transition or the experience of ritual. So on the left is the first sort of worldview or paradigm of the person.

And then as they go through ritual, they cross a threshold and they cross an ordeal. And this ordeal is usually... a very traumatic experience. So, you know, ordeals are usually characterized by feelings of fear, or people being isolated, or people going through sleeplessness, like I am right now, because I've got a three month old baby, you know, ingesting purgatives, or ingesting hallucinogens. So all sorts of things are done to the self in order to experience this ordeal.

And this ordeal, according to the neuroscience and according to the anthropologists, is what dissolves the self, what breaks the self down in order to be assimilated into a new perspective or into a new world. So that's what this diagram is trying to illustrate, is that the person sort of bridges into this new dimension of this new world. through this ordeal.

And so a daily practice, so you can imagine like for instance, the San people practice the trance dance daily or very often rather. So someone who's going through these sort of self-induced traumas on a daily basis, you know, does that mean that their self is constantly being broken down so that they are assimilated with the world? That's what I ended up sort of concluding out of this exercise and ended up with a diagram like this.

And in this diagram, what it's saying is that because the constant change of the world is... requiring the self to be broken down every single day. And this trauma is what allows the self to be broken down every single day to be part of this rhythm or the synchronicity with the world. But this diagram for me wasn't complete. There were certain things that were not quite there yet.

And through the sites that I'm going to talk about now, I ended up finding a way of trying to complete this diagram. So... I'm going to just briefly talk about representation of sacred spaces, because these, I think, are the spaces where this very process of breaking down the self occurs. And so, for instance, this is Lalibela. And I think that these are the places where this process happens, where the self is restructured or reorganized or broken down, either to be assimilated into other groups.

or to be assimilated into the whole, you know, to inhabit existence or to inhabit life. But in terms of representation, these sites are generally represented in this way. So this is from Mark Josembek, Ching Mark Josembek, and I can't remember, I can't pronounce his name.

But the... point is that from the way I saw it, these kind of drawings really are objective representations of this space. You know, as far as I was concerned, they don't necessarily represent the meaning that's embedded within this place. And that's not to say that these drawings have no value. Obviously, they've got lots of value, but you know, there's to me something, a layer of meaning that I would want to explore over and above them being represented as objective spaces in this way.

So what has happened recently is that these very same kind of sacred spaces that hold so much meaning have become, there's been a new layer of representation that's been introduced through 3D modeling. So this is, done by a project in Cape Town, UCT, the School of Architecture called the Zamani Project. And what they do is that they go using laser scanning, they scan various sites across the world, typically archaeological sites such as this one. And again, in my view, through this kind of methodology, I feel as if there's a layer of meaning that's stripped away, you know, because what are we seeing here? in relation to the deeper meaning of these kind of places.

Now, the very same project has done scans of a cave in my hometown. This is the Woonerweg Cave. And, you know, this cave for me and for other people, not everyone in the community, because not everyone values the cave in the same way.

We are obviously a diverse and dynamic group of people who come from there. But some people value this place as a sacred space. And for me, it's concerning that the representation of the space looks like this, you know, that we are comfortable to represent it as a plant in a section, a 3D object.

And so there's very little representation of its... cultural value to people who come from my hometown. Now a very interesting take on representation comes from anthropologist Tim Ingold and in this drawing Tim Ingold is drawing a salmon.

And I know that this obviously does not look like a salmon but what he's trying to capture here is actually the movement of salmon. So what Jesus... basically trying to say is that he's trying to bring back the life that's within the salmon. So this is just a quote that really brings this idea home for me in relation to the question of objectivity versus an animated life or an animated world. He says, this is how we are used to drawing it and it is the way from which Milner started out.

We look at the drawing and even if poorly executed we can immediately recognize it as a fish, and yet it might as well be dead. There is nothing in the drawing to suggest animated life. Milner's problem of how to restore painting and drawing to life was also central to the reflections of the great pioneer of modern abstract art, Wassily Kandinsky. Like Milner, Kandinsky sought to release painting from the constraints of the figurative, to escape the bondage of objects and their imagistic representations so as to reveal the inner necessity of affective animated life, of the inner movement of becoming that is so readily obscured by its outward objective forms. So I found this very compelling as an argument that, you know, to only represent something as an object, one may lose the dynamism of that place.

And one example that I would say I've seen of this kind of representation in regards to sacred sites is this particular example here. This is a rock painting which is attributed to San people in southern Africa and it is in the rain snake shelter in Lesotho. And what we see in this drawing is something that's alive and something that's dynamic. The idea here is that the people are in a spiritual space. And in this space, they are busy trying to drag this sacred snake out of the space.

And you can see that the sacred snake is coiled and it's sort of almost. in my view anyway, implying a sense of movement or vitality or life. And there are all these lines. And according to the one San individual who interpreted this for anthropologists, those lines are all meant to represent living creatures like fish.

So this whole scene is happening underneath. water. So this rain animal, this snake is being pulled out of the water perhaps so that it can be killed so that there can be rain. But for me, this snake could also represent the climate or the weather or forces in nature, including these lions, you know. So this has been a very important drawing for me to kind of...

capture the idea of a place that's got meaning, a way of representing a place having meaning and the landscape having meaning. So another very important drawing that I looked at that influenced me is also from San culture. And in this case, the drawing is on a rock face. This is obviously a tracing of the drawing, but the original one is on a rock face. And these dotted lines represent a cleft on the rock.

And so these mythological creatures are moving between two realms. They're moving between the physical realm of our reality, which is essentially the rock face, and the mythological world. So you can see how some of them are sort of moving into the rock and, you know, some of those fish are behind that black blob. But for me, again, this kind of gave a representation of something that's dynamic, that embeds the meaning and the culture of people within it.

So through that, I began to think about ways of representing the different ritual spaces in my hometown and in my community of Guruman. So Guruman is in... the northern Cape province of South Africa.

It's the, on the left, it's the dot just near the border of Botswana and on the right is sort of a map that shows the various locations that we'll be talking about. So right at the top at the north is the Lohobati cave which is very just along the river. These rivers are generally dried up now but you know during different seasons there might be water there. The second one is Khamohana Shelter, which is closer to where I grew up and was the shelter that I was really told about the most in my upbringing.

And then right at the bottom is Vanuva Cave, which is the one that I showed you just earlier that has been scanned using laser scanning. So one of the most important things about this landscape, it's its relationship to mythology. And one of the main mythical characters is a mythical snake. So some of these quotes are quotes that describe the way in which people perceive the snake.

The first quote comes from a paper by Michael Chazen. And what he said... people said about the snake was that people had to show the snake respect though but he assured us it would not hurt us since we did not believe in it.

The second quote comes from some field work that I did. When I used to live there by the river I would often meet a giant snake. It would be coiled up in my path but I would simply go around it and go and fetch water and when I returned from collecting the water the snake would leave and one would see it going up the river, up the banks of the river. I was still very young and had no fear of the snake.

And then just this final quote, which I got from another member of my community, close member of my community. She says that the snake has often has taken me before. And this idea of being taken by the snake is a very common thing that people say in my community.

Taken by taken me before nearly when I was a child. I went out with one of the old ladies from my village. When I went out to look after the sheep, we went out to look after the sheep, I suddenly had a very deep thirst.

So I decided to go towards the stream. When I got there, I heard a child crying. I saw something in the water. It looked like two arms coming out from under, the arms of a child. I went near to pull the child out.

I pulled hard but could not get the child out. Suddenly I got pulled into the water. It was the snake pretending to be a child.

The old woman I was with yelled, help me, help her, please. Someone help her. The snake is taking her.

The snake took me to a large cave, but it didn't take me deep. I became unconscious and suddenly I woke up by the water, by the water hole next to the village inside the clinic where we usually collect water. I could not remember how I got there.

If the snake took me, I would have been a powerful healer. This lady is actually a very powerful healer, so there's always ambiguity in the stories that she tells. I know the snake.

I've seen it several times. I've seen it coiled up and large. And sometimes I would pass it and touch its hand.

As a child, I would sleep with one on my left or top, because one time I ask her about the story, she'll say on top. Next time she says at the bottom and on my right bottom. and I always talk to the snake. So sometimes when people perceive or see dust devils or whirlwinds, they would say that the snake is passing and this is a very common thing that people say in my community. And so the snake is usually associated with all kinds of destructive forces or malevolent forces.

in our environment. These are drawings that I collected from the field when I was doing field work. These are specifically by one character, one person called Buru in my hometown and he's known for wielding snakes.

He's got many snakes at his house but he drew these drawings about the snake. So you can see that similar to the sand painting that I showed earlier that the snake is seen as a Therianthrope which is a creature that is half human half person. But even now when I look at these drawings, they are very disturbing for me because of how often I've been told these stories about the snake from a very young age. And you know, you could think of that as priming.

And so these are his interpretations or representations of the snake. I did these drawings when I was thinking about what kind of feelings I get when I think about this snake. So this snake is not for me a friendly character.

It's actually, in spite of all the rational reason and Western education that I have, I think because of being primed and conditioned by my community about the snake from a very young age, I still feel very uncomfortable. when I talk about it, let alone visiting as I have the sites where the snake lives. So these drawings are really ways of me trying to express the way I feel about this snake.

So the following places that I'm going to talk about are actually all homes for the snake. That's where people in the community believe the snake lives. So the first place I'm going to talk about is Lohobate Cave, which has got the red circle around it in this image. So this is Lohobate Cave.

Well, you can't really see the cave in this image because, you know, as a visitor and somebody who's not an initiate, I would not be given access to the space to go any closer than this to the space. But it's a space that's unknown to all the non-initiates in the community. So it's a space that's kept secret.

And it's a space where the snake resides. So the place is a place where teenage initiation happens at this particular cave. And like I said, it's hidden away from the community.

So that's around, by that circle, that's where the actual cave is. This is more or less a sort of general proximity of where the cave is because I haven't been initiated, so I don't know exactly where that cave is. So in this community... Girls are told about the snake just like I was told about the snake from a very young age.

And in the case of this particular, the story in this particular place, what they are told from a young age is that the snake steals twins, young twins, sort of children, and it drags them into the river and it kills them. You know, the snake is not by any means friendly and has any mercy, it basically kills. And so young girls are told about this from a very young age. This particular map is generated using Google SketchUp. And so it's a way in which I've been trying to experiment with this idea of representation of this particular place.

So in this diagram, which has deliberately been filtered like this, you're looking at people performing a ritual just in front of the cave. So it's further in the background. And so they'll perform the ritual sort of in proximity to the river and the cave. So this space is far away from the actual village. So which is...

typically falls within the model of ritual practice. You know, a person is taken away from their ordinary setting and taken to a secluded place, which obviously is something that increases the potency of this entire experience. You know, being taken sometimes late at night or early in the morning into an unfamiliar space. And so this is myself and one of the...

ladies who took me to the site and just standing in proximity to that space, I felt really, really scared. I mean, I was even there with two other friends of mine who didn't grow up, you know, knowing about the snake or being primed in the same way, but by virtue of them having heard the little that they've heard and the sort of body language of this lady, it sort of became very difficult to even dare to move closer in spite of the fact that we all are. so-called rational beings and you know we don't really believe that there's a snake there.

And so when these little girls or these young girls eventually go through initiation, where do they go for initiation? They go to this very space. The space that they've been told about their whole lives is a place where the snake resides.

And so what I said earlier about the manner in which trauma is required in order to dissolve the boundaries of the self, to break down the self. In this case, the snake and it being a story that's been told to these people and being located at the river immediately becomes the trauma that's required for the girls to break down the old self in order to take up a new position in society. So this is just one of the quotes from the elders who... sometimes visits the cave.

She says during a ceremony, the elders would walk up the path in intervals, praying to the ancestors while they pause and proceed in this manner until they reach the cave. So you can see there what is beginning to come out is that humility is one of the ways in which one can successfully cross the river without being killed by the snake. So in... essence the landscape becomes a representation of the psychological landscape. So the psychological boundary is represented spatially and that's what gives this place meaning.

And so this is my attempt, the first drawing I'll show you, my attempt of trying to represent this space and its mythological qualities. And so through this, I mean obviously this is my own expression of what this boundary feels like, this mythological boundary feels like. But through this, this is a way in which I'm trying to explore what this place may, the layer of meaning that one may put on top of this map in order to begin to try and bring out the myth or the story and the way in which the space is defined by that mythological boundary of fear.

how one can represent that visually. So this will be one of the first drawings that I'll show you where I'm attempting to demonstrate how one could try and represent this. So the next shelter that I'm going to talk about is Khamohana. And Khamohana is where, now this particular shelter is close to where I grew up.

And so if I were initiated in this community, I would have ended up being initiated at Khamohana Cave. But... because I was obviously then taken out of my community to go to school and university and that sort of thing.

And, you know, due to just my parents being generally more westernized, I didn't end up becoming initiated. But if I had been initiated, this is the place that I would have gone to because the priming that I went through was associated to this particular space. So that's the landscape and Khamo Hana Hill is... what you're looking at in the background there.

And so this is again another Google Map generated 3D terrain of the place. And what we know about this particular landscape is that along the line in the middle represents a river. On the left is the actual community or village and on the right by the hill is the ritual space. And all along this river there are rock engravings and these motifs of the snake. And so if one were to apply the model that we just looked at from the previous space, one can then say that that river could be seen as well as a ritual threshold.

Now this is speculative because I've never actually seen people cross that river as the mythological threshold but What I have seen is crossing this river just on a day-to-day basis with people from at home, there's been many expressions of discomfort. You know, every time people cross by where there are reeds and that sort of thing, you know, people will say, oh, you know, we're going to cross over where the snake is. And sometimes people have gone as far as saying, can you use a different route?

Because that's where the snake is. So from that sense, then one could see that river as a... mythological boundary between the village and the actual ritual space. So again in an attempt to try and represent this mythological boundary, this image is precisely trying to do that where the river is kind of represented with these creatures that for me represent the snake and then on the right that's where the actual ritual space is.

So another thing that I have been trying to do with these 3D surfaces is see them as the way in which I described earlier the rock face as a as a threshold between the spirit world and our world. So the 3D surface being that thin is meant to be that veil between the two different worlds. So when we come into the actual space, this is how the rock shelter looks, the ritual space. I've taken students there now regrettably several times. Regrettably because initiates are meant to go to this place.

And, you know, if I take a group of 100 architecture students there, when people are meant to have terrifying fear of the place, that in itself reduces the... value of the place as a ritual space. But I also think that the actual form of the space, the size of it, all lends itself to creating the right kind of conditions to induce as much fear in the ritual participants as possible.

Because like we said, the fear is meant to break down the self so that there's a possibility for transition, for transformation, for connection. and change. And so this is again another 3D terrain and that black line is actually where the shelter is.

There's two shelters on the site. There's one more on the north face and then there's one at the south face. And this is the main ritual space. I won't show you this too much and again it's been veiled primarily for reasons to respect the space.

Again, this photograph has been fragmented in this way for the same reasons, but what we are looking at here are different indications of ritual use in this space, the candles, the picture on the far right, it's not very clear, but they're rock finger paintings on the surface of this space. And one can see on the picture on the left, all the different indications of fire. So you can imagine the kind of experience people are having in this place late at night, being told about the snake, having been primed their whole lives, the kind of experience that they'll be having.

So on the left side, the dot there represents another part of the overall structure of the space, which is these large dolomitic rocks that have these rock engravings on them as well. So these are also these kind of snake motifs on the rock engravings. And so again, if one were to apply the same model that I applied with the previous two, the person would then have to cross that area in order to encounter the snake.

and break through that fear or break through that priming that they've had their whole lives and hopefully not be killed by the snake. So another quote from people who have been there, talking about the process of moving through the space. This happens until one reaches the end of the cave where the offering would be placed down.

At the end of the cave, one would pick up a small stone and tap the rock on the wall of the cave, known as the breast, and water or milk. would begin to drip out. This water is then drunk and praises are given to the ancestors in hope to find good fortune.

So again, We see here that one of the ways in which you move through the space is through humility. And humility is, it seems, is what allows one to be able to survive the snake. So once again, the psychological boundary is represented spatially. And this is going to be the second last drawing where, again, I'm trying to visually represent this.

this boundary, this psychological boundary, which is the place where the, or the threshold, which is the place where the snake resides. One other thing I didn't mention in these drawings are these sort of lines, which what I was trying to do there is I was trying to refer back to Tim Ingold's little squiggle of the of the salmon and the whirlwind as well because you know one of the things that I'm trying to bring back in these drawings is that vitality or that sense of movement in the landscape. I mean right now all we have in architecture to really represent vital or forces in our environment are when one looks at passive climate design drawings.

you'll sort of do a little blue squiggle to represent wind moving through the building, you know, or a gradient between blue and yellow, blue and red to represent heat gain or heat loss. So not much work has actually been done in regards to how one represents the lived or the animated environment in which our buildings are embedded. And I think to leave that to, I don't know who came up with those kind of...

drawings, but to just leave that up to those people is not enough. So I think that's a legitimate research project. So defining the snake, the snake is dangerous and does what it will.

It is more powerful than people. The snake is responsible for all the malignant forces, destructive winds, drownings, bad luck, and sickness in our world. One's best defense against it is through respect. Besides, we can't fight it. The ritual sites are where people face the snake.

Initiates with the most respect, the most diminished egos, learn to cross the threshold and become capable of dealing with the snake and thus becoming adults. Now they can face the contingent forces of the world. So the last site I'm going to look at is Vonneveg Cave and this site out of all of them is known to be a very well researched archaeological site. And due to it being an archaeological site, or maybe partly due to it being an archaeological site, the way in which local people engage this place is slightly different. It's also associated to the snake.

One of the archaeologists who works there, Michael Chazen, told me that he was told by some men who came here for some ritual practices that the snake that lives in this particular cave takes you and takes you all the way to Chicago. Once it takes you to Chicago, it makes you sin, endlessly sinning in Chicago, and then brings you back so that you can die and go to hell for eternity. So obviously that's another terrifying story associated to this place.

And so this is just an image of the inside of the cave. And there's a new walkway that's been built in the cave. I'm not going to get too much into a discussion about this walkway.

But, you know, the one thing that I will say is that I think the walkway should have been, there should have been more engagement with the community to determine what should actually be done in fires. This walkway is... concerned.

I understand why it's there. It's there because they're trying to protect the archaeology. But in protecting the archaeology, they kind of, for me, forgot to consider the local cultural value of the space. And so this is another sort of site map of the area.

And what I'm proposing with this specific site, because right now, like I said, it's only a research site. What I'm proposing is that, and I'm going to try and do this with my students in the next quarter, is that something be done in order to bring back the ritual value of the space using the same model that we've just looked at in the previous examples. This is a 3D scan, one of the ones that I spoke about earlier, of the actual cave.

So this is obviously the cave outside of the context of being embedded within the hill. And so the question is, what kind of ways could we as architects think about designing the experience and designing whatever one needs to do in order to bring back the model that we've been talking about, about thresholds? which embody this moment where one faces the snake. So this is the front of the cave which already has rock paintings.

You know we're not 100% sure how old they are and who made them but these rock paintings for me give the space potency. And so the rest of the cave has archaeological excavations and there's been damage that's been done there previous to the archaeological excavations. which in my opinion has made the space lose its potency.

And I would like to propose a way in which that potency of the space and the narrative of the snakes could be brought back into this cave. So this is how it looks on the inside. On the left, the damage was caused by guano mining.

And this is the old walkway. I don't include the new walkway because the walkway can actually be removed. It was designed in such a way that it could be disassembled and taken out. So this is how it currently looks.

One of my big problems is the way it's lit. I mean, you know, it being lit like this, how does that make reference to its cultural value? You know, how does the fear of the snake, which is such an important and integral part of the maturation of a young man or a young woman, or the process of diminishing the ego, how is that happening when there's all these floodlights inside the space?

So my suggestion is to not use floodlights like that and to introduce some kind of an element, perhaps still using light because one really doesn't want to damage the space, but perhaps using light to begin to create the same kind of potentially potent ritual experience. when one is moving into the cave. The back of the cave is incredibly dark, so I would propose something that requires very little intervention towards the back of the cave, except at least for someone to be able to see where they're walking.

But this for me is the kind of architectural intervention that undoes some of the things that have happened due to not anyone's fault per se. or maybe one could say it's ignorance, but for me this is a way of looking at decolonizing architecture, deliberately coming up with interventions that undo some of the things that undermined the cultural value of people who, you know, have long lived in this landscape. So one of the projects that we're doing now is trying to bring the community back. You know, this was in collaboration with archaeologists. So, you know, I really credit them because they are trying to open up ways of engaging the different values of this space and not just see it as an archaeological site.

But, you know, the people who are here right now are not necessarily seeing this space as a ritual space. So there could be new ways of. engaging it, new meaning that's placed upon the space. I would imagine that some of them are probably still very scared of being there. And some of them probably wouldn't want to go to the back of the cave by themselves because of fear of the snake.

And so this was an attempt for us to take back that space as the local community. And so these These are the three sketches or the three drawings that I'm saying are my attempt of trying to find ways of representing the meaning that the local community, some of them, not all of them, I mean, let's not for one second think that everyone in this community values or perceives or even understands this mythical snake. It's a mining community. There are many people from different places, but there are still many people who do.

value that particular aspect of the place. And so these drawings for me are beginning of this discussion and you know I foresee myself going through this kind of process. into the future even more. And out of these drawings, going back to this, I've learned some lessons about what the issues with this particular drawing was initially.

And one of the big issues here is that the human being or the person that's in the foreground here is witnessing or is in front of this contingent world. So this contingent world, one could say, is the snake. The snake is contingency itself. It's change.

And so in order for the human being to be in unison with this contingent world, humility is what I've learned from studying these spaces. So this diagram then would capture better what a mythological representation of my home. But even one last step further. is that not everyone in this place is completely in tune with this type of mythological worldview. Not everyone has one particular mythological worldview.

I mean it's already a contentious thing to want to represent mythological worldview or any sort of worldview because my worldview is not going to be the same as anyone else from my hometown. But as an exercise and as an attempt, This is what I'm presenting forward. But Kuruman has been colonized and it has had missionaries come there. And similar to everyone else in Kuruman, I'm Christian, but I also at the same time am still terrified of the snake. And so a real representation of the mythological landscape of Kuruman would include the Christian worldview as part of the entire schema.

Thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Mappei, for that fascinating lecture and for sharing your experiences and research with us.

If it's okay, I can go through some of the questions now. So I'll just work through the chat box. And if anyone has any questions, please feel free to type them into the chat box.

The first question I have is, how old is this community and how old is the culture? So, I mean, I'm not sure how one would really answer that. Because people, there's evidence of hominids living in this area for millions of years.

One of the caves that has been recently, one of the spaces that has been recently studied, which I've been part of, I've been co-editor, co-author in one of the papers, there's been finding of middle stone age artifacts. So the these artifacts go back, I guess, about 200, 300,000 years ago. And so, I mean, you'd have to be very specific about that question. The missionaries arrived, I guess, in the 1800s. You know, the Tswana people arrived there probably around the Iron Age.

And so people have been living here for millions of years. Thank you for that response. Just scrolling through, lots of wonderful praises about the lecture and fascinating studies. There's one comment here that leads to a question that says, beautiful presentation. Ritual, in the case of initiation, happens against the backdrop of natural spaces, archaeological sites.

Understandably so, which often are phenomenological in experience spaces have an intangible quality of sacredness etc if architects are able to create and shape and we as people are trust thrust into the urban jungle cities without them necessarily having experienced fears or trauma is there an opportunity for initiation to occur in urban spaces So this is the kind of experiment I'll be doing with my students next semester. So what I'm planning on doing is for them to design. a similar type of space using this sort of model at the Wannoweg Cave as a way of remedying what I think is problematic with that place. But then I'm going to get them to try and do something similar in Bromfontein in Johannesburg, which is an urban area.

And so through that kind of experiment, you know, we'd like to see what might happen if... you know, if we were to introduce these kind of spaces in urban areas. So it's something that we're going to try and explore.

Sounds fascinating. Can't wait to hear the results. The next question here is, is it ideal to support a tradition that has made people live in fear? Is it, sorry, say that again? Is it ideal to support a tradition that has made people live in fear?

Well, I think at the end of the day, it is up to that community to decide what they want to do. You know, they are autonomous. And I mean, I could critique the West for all kinds of stuff that they do, isn't it?

You know. we could critique. And I think that's actually a fundamentally different worldview because as far as people where I'm from are concerned, the stick rather than the carrot is important, you know, but that's a different worldview.

And so rather than us asking whether it's good or bad to support that, I think it should be about whether we respect each other's cultures. I mean, it's like basically me asking, you know, should we respect the Chinese for their culture? You know what I'm saying?

So I don't know whether we should promote it or not promote it. Who are we or who is that person to decide whether they're promoting it or not promoting it? You know, we should all be, we should all respect that.

And what's... what's also very important to realize is that this is probably the oldest and most prevalent practice across the world. So this is not just something that happens here in Africa and in my home community.

If you look at African masks from all across Africa, they were used in rituals of initiation and these things look terrifying. My wife is from Zambia and in Zambia they've got something called the chingao. And the Chinyao, you know, little girls or little children would see men in masks, wearing these masks in the community with whips, and they would chase these children around the community with these whips. And for initiation, you're going to be caught by one of these Chinyaos that you've been primed to fear your whole life.

But for me, out of all of this, people then learn how to, I think the point is, The whole point is to have an assault on the ego. The ego is the problem. And so all of these methods are to deal with the ego.

So, you know, again, it's up to communities how they render that experience. Great, absolutely. The next series of questions comes from...

Joseph. He says, good day. I am a post-grad student from the University of Pretoria, and I apologize for the pronouncing. The project I am currently investigating in contextually sits in the great Zimbabwe heritage landscape, and the project I deal with questions excavation and heritage.

I ask three questions. If there is a curatorial architecture in or on and under the site, how does one meditative program towards end users. The next question is, and how can one explain that an intervention enhances deep heritage site instead of detracting from its richness?

Furthermore, I enjoyed your exonometric drawings, but what would happen if these are realized at one-to-one scale in relation to the site as something spatial instead of representational? Lastly, should representation necessarily be removed from the site knowing that the documentation of these sacred sites are often misrepresented in their significance such as in great Zimbabwe. So Okay, so let me see if I can find that question. You might have to just repeat the first one. I deal with the first one and then we just move on like that, please.

Absolutely. So the first question is, if there was a curatorial architecture in, on and under the site, how does one mitigate a program towards end users? So that's the big question, really. And I think linked to what the other question was about, instead of it just being drawings, if it was actual spaces, that's actually the big question.

I mean, these representations were the first opportunity or the first way in which one starts, or at least I have started thinking about this. Because I know that as far as a built project is concerned, that's going to take time. And so I went through this kind of exercise to begin to think about that. But like I said, my plan is to engage these sites with students to see what they will produce.

So I don't have the answers about how one actually goes about doing this, because how often have we, you know, engaged spaces that have lost or in which the cultural value has been undermined and then tried to reverse that process or at least. move on from that process? How often has that happened?

That's not something that is done very often, I think, or at least here in South Africa, it's not something that's done very often. So, and particularly with these sort of ritual spaces. So it's a new thing. And I think it's something that, yeah, I mean, for me, it's basically what I see my career being all about. The next question was, hmm.

And how can one explain that an intervention enhances deep heritage sites instead of detracting from its richness? Detracting from its richness. You know, so who was the first person to make a mark on that site? Those were my ancestors, the people who made the mark on those sites.

So I'm well within my right to make a mark on that site myself. I'm well within my right as long as I think it's done rigorously and carefully to engage that site and to continue my culture. And so I think that's what I'll say in regards to that.

Absolutely. The next part of the question was, furthermore, I enjoyed your exonometric drawings, but what would happen if these were realized at one-to-one scale? Sure. So that's what I was saying is that that's what hopefully we can do going forward. Right.

Okay, so I'm going to move on to the next question. Your drawing style is quite interesting. How do you determine it specifically?

Do you admire a specific artist or gain inspiration and make it your own? So like I said, a lot of my influence comes from the, you know, the, I would say, art of the pre-colonial San hunter gatherer people of Southern Africa. I've been studying the art for many years now, visited many many of the sites, there are many of them in South Africa, and so I think maybe that's what's influenced my work a lot. Thank you.

We still have quite a few questions. The next is from Darcy, and it says that, I'm really curious about your research and process, particularly your selection of ways of thinking that integrate what is, as part of the fuller picture. For example, selections of phenomenological to expand the idea of human experience beyond neural activity.

When it comes, so much of the world is about reducing to simplify scientific principles. Continuing on. So places are representative of all emotions, all histories, instead of curated ones that the idea, architectural work can cross realms.

Do you have recommendations for students that want to expand their thinking beyond reductionism and develop broader minds? Yeah, that's the whole point. I think, you know, like the other person said earlier, who was saying, should we promote fear and that sort of thing?

I think reductionism and that sort of thing is actually a Western culture. you know, in my view. And so if we are looking for other ways using different worldviews and different models to explore architecture, I think, yeah, maybe that's how we can get to that. I mean, that's why I went through this process was because I wanted to see if by looking at the worldview of the people where I come from, what kind of art... what kind of spaces, what kind of things I could create.

That was the whole point of that. So, yes, you know, one thing that I've always said is that in South Africa we need more African scholars, PhD graduates, exploring these kind of things. Currently, as far as I know, there are three of us, doctoral African, South Africans in architecture and you can imagine the more there are, the more these kind of things will be explored.

So that's a big project that needs to get underway is increasing the academic intellectual body of African architects. Thank you. Perhaps we'll take one or two more questions. We're about five minutes, we have about five minutes left. The next question is Are there other rituals and spiritual animals in Kuremen besides the snake that the people showed respect to?

Yeah, so there are many different groups of people in Kuruman. You know, the snake is just one of the most, how can I say, enduring myths. But, you know, in Kuruman, there are people who...

value the monkey or the baboon, they're called batwining. There are batlaping, which batlaping, klapi refers to fish. So there are different groups that those are specifically tsuwanas, but you know their relationship to those totems are not, it's not necessarily the same as in this case where that particular mythological entity is about. you know, inducing a particular emotional state. So they're more sort of identity, related to identity, totemic identity.

Great, thank you. So maybe we'll end off on one more question. Thank you for your presentation.

In what way does this could influence architectural design, hence shaping tradition architecture in the present time? Yeah, that's the big question. That's exactly the point. You know, it's just saying we've got a lot of work to do.

Imagine, like I said, you know, 50 more people doing these kind of experiments. I mean, that one image that I showed about the potential of doing something in that cave. I mean, I'm imagining doing something with lights, you know, something that sort of animates the inside of the cave. something that's very light that can be removed if it's not working.

You know, it could be an amazing experiment. And so, yeah, I think there's a lot of work to do. Thank you so much. That was so fascinating.

I think there are a few final words that I'll pass it on to before we end the lecture for today. Okay, so yeah, Mark Sachaba, thank you very much for a very provocative talk. And I think that the questions speak for themselves in terms of what you're actually trying to do and what you're trying to open our minds up to. I had quite a lot of closing remarks, but I think a lot of them have been covered in the question and answer session.

But just the one point that I want to make is that, you know, there's a lot of talk about transformation in architectural studies. And often it revolves around kind of diversity, equity and access. And that kind of cuts it down to sort of access and demographics and that. Whereas I think that the much more important question is the one that you're posing, which is about how we decolonize the curriculum. And that is not about, you know, just switching it to something else, but really opening up the discussion and enabling many, many different ideas.

and bringing many different views and voices to the table. And I think that what's really required is that we all kind of participate in this discussion because, you know, we're all part of this world and there are many different views. And I think that we should be open to these discussions.

They are hard discussions to have, but we should be open to them so that we don't end up limiting our own worldviews, you know, by just what we think is the convention and the tradition and what is right. I think that... what you've shown us that there's a whole other richness by being open to this kind of discussion and I think that this leads into you know Douglas has an idea about actually bringing the whole idea of decolonizing curriculums across the globe because I think these discussions are being held everywhere and so I think it's very pertinent and I think your talk has been a really good kind of probe.

for all of us to start thinking about and bringing these discussions to a much, much greater audience. So thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Great, thank you. So, um, I'll just pass it to Douglas. Did you have any final?

Um, thank you. Thank you, Veronica. I just wanted to say thank you as well. Um, It's been wonderful to see everybody again online.

I'm hoping that we can continue to do this again and again and again. And as I said, if you or your institution is interested in participating in the idea of the Global Studio, please contact one of us from Athabasca or at Open Architecture or at CPUT or any of the other groups that we've talked to. I think what we're seeing is a tremendous interest and a tremendous opportunity. So I'm...

very much looking forward to our next event and our next get together, which we will post as soon as we're sort of just lining things up and we will post that as soon as we know. But if you also have ideas, we'd be interested in hearing them. But finally, just to thank Dr. Mappe again, it was a wonderful presentation.

And certainly I think we all learned a tremendous amount. So it's been another tremendous experience for us all. So thank you everybody.

Thank you. Thank you. I guess with that, we'll shut it down. But we'll look forward to everybody joining us again very soon. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks. Thank you again, Dr. Mappe. That was just so fascinating. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks so much. Bye, Kristen.

Chat to you just now. Yeah, let's chat now. Okay. I'm going to keep zoom running because if I log off, I think I shut the meeting down.

So I'll just keep it running for a couple more seconds. Thanks Veronica for all your help with this and thanks Kristen as well. It's a

Transcript for:Ritual Spaces and Cultural Representation

Transcript for:
Ritual Spaces and Cultural Representation