ArchiAfrika-April-Magazine-English-final-v2

A travelling research project on informal recycling practices in six African cities (Cairo, Addis Ababa,
Kampala, Kigali, Lusaka, and Johannesburg).
Adane Y., taxi driver, inspected his disposable
photographs meticulously, 6x4 copies slightly
spoiled by a coarse grain and overexposure.
Almost all of them showed the same subject:
a construction site fence painted repetitively
in green and yellow vertical stripes. But with
each image Adane described something
else he saw or intended to capture. When I
pressed him on the reappearing fence, he told
me plainly “it is just in the construction.”
One of my field methods is the distribution
of disposable cameras to residents. These
photographs intend to document a kind of
lived experience and construct a narrative of
each city. With Adane, I asked him to shoot a
typical drive through Addis Ababa. Some of
his photographs were framed by the edge of
his taxi window or dashboard (an old Russian
Lada taxi immaculately kept). His journey
was located between old town, Piazza, and
desirable new location, Bole. In both examples
the fence was there, and provided a clue for my
project. The ongoing investigation – Material
Economies – as part of the RIBA Norman
Foster Travelling Scholarship consists of a
movement (or a line) in each city that follows
the life of a particular material, usually
recycled. This allows me to understand its
arrangement and sequence as it is positioned,
changed or renewed. I trace the intersections
and movements of informal economies, which
take different turns and direct me to different
locations. I encounter a complex interplay of
urban relationships, actors and tactics, mostly
informal and diffuse, and many are invisible.
By following Adane’s implied material, I learnt
that this fence made from corrugated iron
sheeting and always painted with this uniform
colour palette and pattern is a government
regulation in Addis Ababa for every new
building site. A contractor suggested this
directive was a way of “beautifying” the city
before an African Union summit two years
ago. The fence has since become ubiquitous
and shows a city under construction. My
interest, however, is not the aesthetics but
how this canvas is transforming everyday life.
The fencing often encloses large vacant sites
that were once informal settlements. It first
masked a demolished popular neighbourhood,
Filwuha, adjacent to the Sheraton Hotel,
lined with mature palm trees. Residents were
relocated to city-edge condominium plots.
Only a local mafia and handful of surviving
settlers remain. My guide and old Filwuha
neighbour, Biruk G., said it is “just a matter
of time before all old villages are removed
from Addis.” His village will soon be cleared,
and his current stationery business will have
to end. His clients and networks won’t travel
with him and he’s already thinking up a new
occupation as a condominium broker.
Inhabitants in these
environments are readily
repositioned, whether they
are compelled to relocate
livelihoods, or engage in a
form of street occupation.
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