Chinenye Chukwuka is a recent graduate of the GSA, where she received a distinction for her Masters Thesis exploring Johannesburg as a Metropolitan Mine, and the complex inhabitations of the subaltern communities that inhabit that metropolis, often hiding in plain sight under the built fabric of the city.  She also received the Corobrik Award for Best Use of Clay Brick, an Examiners Choice Award, and the GSA Women in Architecture Prize. She is currently working as a Candidate Architect at Library Special Projects, a Johannesburg practice that creates and curates exhibitions and immersive public spaces.  "Emergent Practice 2" is her second major co-curatorial project for the GSA, the first being the Women's Mobile Museum with VIAD, the Museum of Black Joy, and the TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image.

CURATING

Curating is storytelling, deciding what should be revealed and hidden, it is a kind of selective seeing.  This interest in ways of seeing or choosing not to see underpinned my thesis work at the GSA and lies beneath my interest in curating.  What communities or perspectives are we blind to, what new cultural and urban conditions are we choosing not to see even as they develop before our eyes?  What am I seeing, what are you seeing, can I cause you to see differently? Can architecture create alternative or new spatial experiences that help us to see differently, or perhaps hide better?  By thinking about ways of seeing, can we explore complex and fragile truths about the human condition, and create platforms where alternative voices and communities of practice can be profiled?  

Curating is storytelling, my “Emergent Practice”, whether through exhibitions like this, my Masters research,  or formal architectural projects. The co-curation of this exhibition, the seeing afresh of the work of Fred Swart and of fellow GSA alumni, has in some way curated my thinking and seeing. Curating then, is telling a story, and then hearing one told back to me.

Her recent group exhibitions include Situated Making and IMMINENT AND EMINENT ECOLOGIES at The University of Johannesburg FADA gallery. She is co-founder of the architecture bureau and digital platform room19isaFactory., which was invited to exhibit in the Delay and Encounter and/or Other Proximate Unknowns group exhibition at the Foundation For Contemporary Art Ghana, and also awarded a residency at Kudzanai Chiurai’s The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember in 2023. She is co-founder of the ritual homeware and objects design studio What Has Two Eyes and Too Many Ears?, and a research associate at VIAD at the University of Johannesburg.

BArch(Hons) University of Johannesburg,

MArch University of Johannesburg

Currently, I'm honing my skills at TJ Architects, where I'm gaining valuable insight into the traditional aspects of being an architect. My ultimate goal is to merge my practice with my diverse interests in art, filmmaking, furniture design, photography, and architecture. By doing so, I aim to push the boundaries of conventional architecture and create a unique fusion of creative expression.

Through my industry experience, I've become acutely aware of the challenges faced by black women in architecture. I aspire to not only succeed in my career but also drive change in legislation that limits opportunities for black people and women. I'm committed to using my skills and voice to create a more inclusive and equitable built environment

Graduate School of Architecture (GSA)

She believes that space fashions the human psyche and in order to design what a space could be it is imperative to understand what it exists as. Her art lies in how she depicts the energy of the spaces she documents predominantly using the art of photo collage to bring a materiality, texture and dynamism to traditionally static technical drawing conventions.

Her main theme in her studio inquiry is how to transform rural and urban spaces; having urban spaces that facilitate integration, redress and spatial agency and developing rural spaces with the intent of identity, skills development and community upliftment. Her theological inquiry is mainly aimed at cultural preservation through the study of South African material culture and its translation to architecture and emerging technology.

Nigeria

philosophy as a lover of peace, and justice. Her belief in not sacrificing competency for ethnicism and her respect for

traditional institutions. I attempted using both the UNESCO and the National Park Services criteria to make a case for establishing the residence as a historic site.

Her most active platform is the academic space, tutoring undergraduate students at the University of Johannesburg and from University College London. Having traveled to 18 countries already, she believes that immersing oneself in a new environment yields dependence on one's instincts. Sunshine, thus, aspires to collaborate with writers, artists, and researchers across the world, using every opportunity to expose herself to creative ways of solving problems.

BArch Hons (UJ),

MArch (UJ)

She is inspired by architecture that sparks curiosity and imagination, both in its conceptualisation, realisation and reality. Her approach to architecture is rooted in the human experience. She believes in the narrative potential of architecture as the storyteller, the setting and the protagonist (or, in some cases, antagonist). and hopes to harness this ability throughout her forthcoming career

Deborah holds a SMArchS in Design Computation from MIT and a B.Arch from USC. Their recent exhibitions include ‘How to Dial a Memory’ at the 2024 Cambridge Science Festival and ‘Sisters in Making’ in MIT Rotch Library in 2023. They were recently published in An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping (2024) and presented their project “Limits of Expression” at ACADIA 2023. They are founder of the independent design practice tsogbe, which develops soft wear, and recently completed a stay as 2023 Women@MIT Fellow with MIT Distinctive collections. They are currently based in Los Angeles, CA, USA where they work as a residential architect and as design director for tsogbe.

Limits of Expression

As a community- and collaboration-driven designer, design educator and researcher, I merge spatial design and social sciences to empower the marginalised. My journey into the spatial design world started off with an undergrad in Interior Architecture from the University of Pretoria. I spent nearly 2 decades as an architectural lighting designer collaborating on local and international projects. My postgraduate studies in Anthropology (UNISA) and Heritage Studies (Wits) – both grounded in architecture and space – have deepened my understanding of the intersection of space, culture and power. I now teach spatial design part-time at a number of institutions, namely at the University of Pretoria (Department of Architecture), University of Johannesburg (Interior Design) and Greenside Design Center (Interior Design). 

My pivot into the social sciences after my undergrad was because I couldn’t relate to the interior design practice. My values, my politics, my way of life and history as a black woman living in South Africa, was not represented. I am a black feminist, who was raised with strong Xhosa traditional values and philosophies – that I acknowledge but challenge at every turn. My normative position is about pushing the liberatory conversation (and action) forward for people who look like me, seeking justice and equality through spatial design. This is not only expressed through my work and research in architecture and interior, but in my keen social science, visual and performance art interests and research. Currently, my design and research focus is on the spatial and archival imaginaries (and materialities) of black and marginalised communities. My interest and awareness of socio-cultural and political contexts influences the way I think, design, teach and conduct research.

It has become apparent that access to capital and land remains a tool for furthering spatial inequality, continuing legacies of spatial injustice and exclusion of primarily black and marginalised communities. This has led to Dineo to take a course in property development with the intention of further investigating the role of land, development and architecture as potential agents of spatial justice which is central to her future endeavours as an architect.

With still more questions than answers, Dineo is intent on establishing a hybrid development and architecture practice specifically focusing on projects that uplift and restore agency to marginalised communities especially in South Africa’s rapidly urbanising cities.

When she's not designing Dineo is a sister, daughter, lover, dreamer, seeker, spirit-filled Believer, present-futurist, ideator, storyteller, artist, diy-er, singer-songwriter, narrator, and healer.

Dineo IS her name. Gifts.

Dineo means Many.  Multi. Pluri. Pan. All of it. All-in-One. All together. I am.

B. Arch Honours - UJ

M. Arch -UJ

Zola is actively thinking about ways to collaborate with African women architects, landscape architects, planners and creatives overall to design unique development projects in South Africa (KwaZulu Natal). Namely the ancient and contemporary use of compressed earth in construction by Black People/Æthiops since antiquity. The color blue (universally used for spiritual protection) features prominently in Africa/the diaspora in the form of beads found in African burial grounds, indigo dye in textiles as well as the interior/exterior color of homes, is also highlighted.

Her practice spans sound, video, drawing, spatial design and community driven environmental interventions. Her work has been presented at various institutions including Lincoln Center, National Sawdust (NY), BBC Radio 4, Dhaka Art Summit, Goethe Institut (Dhaka), BOZAR (Brussels), SAVVY Contemporary, Galerie Wedding and Ballhaus Naunynstrasse (Berlin). She has lectured internationally at Harvard University, UC Berkeley and the City University of New York and has served as a design critic at Addis Ababa University, Columbia University and Tulane University.

Committed to the stewardship of communal land and the convergence of speculative design thinking and indigenous knowledge, Olani activates her background in urban ecology, planning and design to be of service to communities across the planet. Over the years, she has collaborated with Francis Kéré in rural Burkina Faso, esperanza spalding in Portland, Oregon and most recently alongside public housing communities in NYC. She holds a Masters in Design with honors from Harvard University and a BA from Occidental College.

New York University

Certification in Business Project Management

Temple University

Master's in African American Studies (African-Centered Perspective)

Hunter College

Bachelor's in Communications & Psychology

In 2022, she co-founded cross-disciplinary architecture collective room19isaFactory. with three Unit 19 graduates. Through the typological practice she terms ‘Unreasonable Architecture’, she attempts to suspend design approaches to 'land' as defined by modern reason, chronopolitics, and property regimes through the practice of architecture as cosmological wall-making.

Our mission is to advance the agency of African women, femmes, and nonbinary spatial actors across the diaspora, by creating spaces that honor our voices, amplify our practices, and foster collective resilience. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, cultural preservation, and community engagement, we aim to support and uplift the work of our community members, ensuring their contributions are recognized and valued within broader spatial, social, cultural, and artistic narratives.

My practice explores themes of healing, memory, archives, and landscapes; blending traditional craftsmanship with contemporary digital techniques to create intricate designs and artistic pieces highlighting marginalised narratives and identities. My approach explores nuances of stitching as a form of healing and making amends, while my architectural research focuses on blackness in space as well as regenerative community-centered solutions. I’m dedicated to promoting equality and agency, particularly in relation to Black bodies. Currently I work as an architect in practice and a design lecturer at the University of Johannesburg. 

Olive graduated with a Masters in Architecture at the University of Johannesburg with distinction, her work focuses on Afrocentric ideologies in architecture and urbanity. She recently presented her research work at the Society of Architectural Historians annual conference in Montreal, Canada.

As a professional poet Olive has performed in the United Kingdom and three times at one of Africa’s largest Poetry Festivals, Poetry Africa. In 2024 she came 1st place in South Africa for the Poetry Slam finals. Olive is passionate about using her multidisciplinary practice to connect people, cultures and places and create awareness around sociopolitical issues. In her everyday life she works as a part time Architecture lecturer at the University of Pretoria, a professional poet, a freelance candidate architect and a graphic designer.

Raised in Johannesburg, I am currently based between Manzini and London. As a facilitator, culture worker, and researcher, I am deeply interested in margins, liminality, otherness, and kinship. My work explores the intersections of self-organised practices, embodied archives, creativity, and the internet age—emphasizing commoning as praxis.

At School of Commons, my role focuses on ensuring public access to and disseminating knowledge related to commons-based methods and practices while promoting alternative ways of working. Drawing on my research UBUNGXENYE (Parthood), I creatively directed the development of SoC's new website and identity. This digital garden and directory for ecosystems serves as a communal environment and resource for collectively exploring and supplementing (infra)structures for peer learning and collaborative work.

My background in architecture includes my role as Head of Communications at Counterspace from 2020 to 2023. This position represented a meaningful full-circle moment for me, having started my career in public relations with Zaha Hadid Architects.

Full rebrand and website:

https://schoolofcommons.org

https://www.counterspace-studio.com

https://phase3.uk

PR projects include:

• Islamic Arts Biennale 2023

• Serpentine Pavilion 2021

• Dhaka Art Summit Pavilion 2023

• Notting Hill Carnival Pavilion 2022

• Support Structures For Support Structures

• Listening to the City

• Prompts for a City

• Frieze Sculpture 2021

• Alternative Futures

• Riverside Museum of Transport and Travel, Glasgow

• Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University

• London Aquatics Centre

• Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku

• Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container

  
  

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantelle-lue/details/projects/

Ndebele’s peri-disciplinary practice is rooted in DJ performance as a spatial research method on subcultural worldbuilding and their work consists of a series of aural and visual research outputs on placemaking in urban nightlife. Ndebele’s current relationship to architecture in Johannesburg is through academia; they lecture part time at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Department of Architecture, and occasionally present research on queer subcultures and nocturnal Johannesburg at UJ's Graduate School of Architecture.