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Cultural Vocabularies: Vitu Vya Saana

  • Suswa Mountain Harvester – Cave Bureau
    Suswa Mountain Harvester – Cave Bureau
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Cultural Vocabularies: Vitu Vya Saana
Sunday 4 June 2023, 1—4pm
Event Information

Footscray Community Arts is excited to present Cultural Vocabularies: Vitu Vya Saana, a creative conversation curated by Collective Futures and presented by Cave_Bureau: a Nairobi-based bureau of architects and researchers charting explorations into architecture and urbanism within nature.

Cave_Bureau’s creative design practice addresses and works to decode both anthropological and geological contexts of the postcolonial African city, explored through drawing, storytelling, construction, and the curation of performative events of resistance.

Cultural Vocabularies: Vitu Vya Saana will explore the importance of knowledge sharing, connecting with the ecosystems of communities in Naarm, honouring ancestral wisdom and celebrating our unique cultural heritage.

  • The first dialogue introduces Cave_Bureau’s practice and body of work, presented
    through storytelling and a series of short films.
  • The second, asks the audience to bring along with them an object that embodies
    their cultural heritage, and share a tale or two. Objects are not passive, isolated
    entities, but rather dynamic and interconnected, forming complex webs of relationships
    that shape our lived experience.

Through sharing our diverse stories that amplify the voices of systemically minoritised communities, we aspire to strengthen cross-cultural sharing with communities here on stolen country and the Diaspora communities. We hope to strengthen a sense of community and increase awareness of the vital role cultural heritage plays in processes of decolonisation, self-determination, healing, and resistance.

Date and time: Sunday 4 June 2023, 1—4pm
Venue: Footscray Community Arts’ Performance Space

Co-presented by Footscray Community Arts, Collective Futures and Cave_Bureau
This session will be positioned within the Perspectives Exhibition as an extension of the Cultural Vocabularies conversation series.
This project is supported by VicHealth through its Future Healthy: Future Reset program.

Date & Times
When

Sunday 4 June 2023, 1—4pm

Venue
Performance Space
Cost

Free

Accessibility

Auslan Interpretation

Learn more about Cave_Bureau
Meet the Artists
  • Cave_Bureau
    Cave_Bureau

    Cave_Bureau is a Nairobi-based bureau of architects and researchers charting explora-
    tions into architecture and urbanism within nature. Our work addresses and works to decode both anthropological and geological contexts of the postcolonial African city,
    explored through drawing, storytelling, construction, and the curation of performative
    events of resistance. The bureau is driven to develop systems and structures that improve
    the human condition, without negatively impacting the natural environment and social
    fabric of communities. By conducting playful and intensive research studies into caves
    within and around Nairobi, we aim to navigate a return to the limitless curiosity of our
    early ancestors while confronting the challenges of contemporary rural and urban living.

    Kabage Karanja is an architect, spelunker and adjunct assistant professor at Columbia
    University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning & Preservation, GSAPP. He founded
    Cave_bureau in 2014 alongside Stella Mutegi. As a natural environment enthusiast he leads
    the bureau’s geological and anthropological investigations into architecture and nature,
    which includes orchestrating expeditions and surveys into caves within the Great Rift Valley
    in East Africa. As a serial sketcher and storyteller, Kabage is driven to script and communicate cave thinking in relation to both built and natural environments. Recent exhibitions include the Architect’s Studio exhibition at the Louisiana Museum 2023; The 18th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice 2023; The 17th International Architecture Exhibition,
    Venice 2021, where he was awarded a Special Mention for the installation titled “Obsidian Rain”; The World Around Summit, Guggenheim Museum, 2021; Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, 2019-20; London Festival of Architecture 2018. Karanja lives and works in Nairobi.

    Stella Mutegi is an architect, spelunker and adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning & Preservation, GSAPP. She founded Cave_bureau in 2014 alongside Kabage Karanja. She is known in the bureau as the problem slayer of all design issues, heading up the technical department and orchestrating the seamless coordination of ideas into built form. She partakes in all Cave_bureau expeditions and surveys into caves within the Great Rift Valley, later steering those geological and anthropological investigations towards a unique architectural product. Recent exhibitions include the Architect’s Studio exhibition at the Louisiana Museum 2023; The 18th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice 2023; The 17th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice 2021, where she was awarded a Special Mention for the installation titled “Obsidian Rain”; The World Around Summit, Guggenheim Museum, 2021; Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, 2019-20; London Festival of Architecture 2018. Karanja lives and works in Nairobi.

  • Collective Futures
    Collective Futures

    Collective Futures is an interdisciplinary community dedicated to shaping a more inclusive and equitable society. Our projects centre dialogue as a catalyst for change. Through our art, design, culture, and technological practices, we strive to affirm agency, increase representation, and create opportunities.

Ticketing

This is a past event