Tales of the vulnerability of African black women in transit spaces

Abstract

This visual project uses original surrealist collage-making as a critical architectural tactic to capture and expose the vulnerability of black female bodies in spaces of urban–rural transit. The surrealist images act as an allegorical tool to comment critique and question the very ‘real’ experiences and vulnerabilities black African women face as they transit between urban and rural landscapes today. My images move beyond the limited methods provided by traditional architectural knowledge to explore alternative spatial imaginaries of everyday issues of vulnerability and safety and to reveal some of the nuanced gendered dynamics black women experience in transit spaces. By drawing attention to how women linger and navigate through such spaces, my work seeks to provoke questions regarding the potential for more progressive and imaginative urban futures in the way urban transit and public space is designed.

Keywords:

• surrealism
• Black African Women
• public space
• vulnerability
• intersectionality
• transit space
• urban landscapes
• rural landscapes

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kgaugelo Lekalakala

Kgaugelo Lekalakala is a young architect and artist from Mmametlhake, Mpumalanga. Her work explores the Black body in space, using graphics and architecture to critique spatial constructs. She studied design at the National School of the Art (2012). She then attained her BAS degree in architecture at the University of Cape Town (2016). She later attained her MTech (Prof) (CW) Masters degree from the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Email: [email protected]