For the forthcoming installation “Homeplace – A Love Letter”, Matri-Archi(tecture) re-imagines and re-configures the Rotunda as a site for critical reflections on the spatiality of dwelling, sharing with–and inviting–visitors to consider what forms and imaginings a home might invoke and hold. In coming together, Matri-Archi(tecture) interrogates the plurality of a homeplace, not fixed in scale, duration or state. Through assemblages of textile, sound and storytelling–mythical, speculative and performative–the installation explores commonalities and possible forms of place-making by centering the homeplace as a place that is both affective and intimate, revealing the dimensions of personal, interpersonal and embodied experiences of belonging.
The exhibition materializes in three parts. A beaded curtain extends from the ground floor to the dome of the Rotunda, creating a space of transparency and intimacy. The atmospheric space is complemented by a soundscape based on a series of voices from the diaspora, exploring ideas of dwelling. Matri-Archi(tecture) opens and extends “Homeplace” with an imbizo (Zulu: gathering) that activates the installation during the vernissage into the exhibition.
With “Homeplace”, Matri-Archi(tecture) invites visitors to take part in a discourse on imaginings of home otherwise. As diasporic women mediating, bridging and blurring boundaries across Northern and Southern hemispheres, the exhibition honours and references African and diasporic rituals, expressions and forms of constructing homeplace, that is at once reflected in the installation and experience of it.