An installation by architectural designer and researcher Thandi Loewenson, Lumumba’s Grave, explores so-called ‘technofossils’ – the remnants of man-made objects sent into space, amassed in orbit into an archaeology of imperialist expansion beyond the earth.
A series of graphite drawings line the walls and ceiling, showing the scenes of exploitation and extraction that connect this extraterrestrial detritus to its earthly origins, while models of African aerospace projects hang in the room, suspended in a celestial geology.
Collaborator: Thandi Loewensen.
‘Here these objects of "violence" (as they may be in a western context) actually become objects of liberation and nationhood. Thandi was looking for alternative takes on the fragments around the wall where they become both representations of exploitation, but also of possibilities for resistance, imagining new futures outside of the histories, realities of colonisation.’
Curatorial Team