Lys Divine Ndemeye

In this session, we use critical spatial discourses to unpack the colonial stories in Landscape Architecture and offer equity-based alternatives. Using Afrofuturism as a framework, this workshop will serve as a ground to daylight and dismantle colonial narratives based in extractive and oppressive systems and will present methodologies for life-stewarding practices. Afrofuturism is rooted in ancient wisdom from Africa and around the world and operates at the “intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation” to imagine social change (Womack, 2013). As we envision equitable and sustainable futures, it’s important to design Landscape practices based in truth-telling, justice, reciprocity and care. We will cover topics centered around spatial justice, ethnobotany and decolonization.

Learning Objectives:

• Identifying colonial based narratives in Landscape Architecture
• Foundations of Afrofuturism as a design paradigm
• Methodologies and approaches to decolonizing practice and narratives in Landscape Architecture through Afrofuturism & African cosmologies
• Ethnobotany