ASHES AT THE END OF THE FIRE

 

MONUMENTS OF FRAGMENTED MEMORY

 

Memory is often considered as a form of  preservation that is unreliable and forever changing. It’s essence continues to be morphed by additions and subtractions to the initial event. Despite this evidence of irregular recollection, memories still maintain their importance of being the only means of the documentation of  an event lost over time.

 

The provision of conditional amnesty, as apart of South Africa’s transformation, post-apartheid, was contentious.  Opinions were split as factions from opposing sides pushed for and against indemnifications, either resisting or promoting complete amnesty. In total 7116 applications were received of which 72% were turned down, the reasons for the rejections vary. Today, over 2 decades later one of the most concerning legacies is how little action has been taken on this issue. Aggrieved families have fought fervently for truth and justice without proper reconciliation.

 

 

Considering the age of these oppressors and victims, and the unpredictable nature of memory, it is fundamental to be able to document any lasting figments of memory that may still remain in the recesses of their minds, for it proves to be the only form

of evidence that can act as Security during the country’s transition from one generation to the next. These memories are the only means we have to find closure for the aggrieved.

 

Should the individuals in question pass on without us being able to retrieve Information from them, we would be losing a vital possibility of reconciling past crimes.

 

The Project takes insights from the timelines of apartheid aggressors and victims who were tortured and killed in police custody. The individuals who were denied amnesty (the perpetrators) are currently members of an aging society who are camouflaged in the workings of everyday normal life.

 

During the apartheid regime, Police Stations were used as facilitators in the torture and deaths of many activists. The most notorious, John Vorster Square, a police station in Johannesburg, played host to a large number of these human rights violations. Through witness accounts John Vorster square is reconstructed strictly through the descriptions given by inmates during the inquest into the Ahmed Timol case . Through the delicate study of recollections and reconstruction the proof of the space surfaces and the burden of the atrocities are realized.

 

What if, like The Timol Family who found some form of closure through judicial processes, the 27 families whose loved ones who were killed in detention may find closure too?

 

What if the psychology behind architectural spaces could be used in the facilitation of this reconciliation?

 

And so the project transcends John Vorster Square and other local police stations and houses itself in the Basement of Constitution Hill. The Idea is that the most atrocious crimes should be  housed under the highest court, in the biggest basement in Johannesburg. The basement, as described, is a symbolic descend into the underworld, theres very little to no natural light, symbolizing a journey into our subconscious and as such triggers our baser nature.

 

And so, Through the analysis of 28 South African amnesty cases and the psychological research behind Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a space is created in the belly of the institution that governs these crimes. The intention: to encourage the recollection of the memory of the event through specific psychological prompts. 

 

The space, a tribute to traumatic events, bears the residue of past atrocities in attempt to prompt the memory and subsequent recollection of these vital encounters. Laden with prompts that are reminiscent of the event, the space seeks to exploit sensory memory in order to trigger recollection of the event, these include: spaces for sound, for taste, spaces to prompt sight and spaces for touch, which are engineered to jog the memory of the event. The flow and routes participants are led across, are dictated by the footprints of the architecture that housed the atrocities.

 

Basel Van der Kolk mentions in her study: “We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present.

 

And so, Witnesses of the event are accompanied by Psychologist across three floors of the basement to limit the effects of post traumatic stress. Each floor houses the events of the deaths in detention chronologically. The space, closely monitored by non-intrusive court clerks, documenting the reaction and possible testimony of the eyewitness. In an attempt to ‘build truths’, witness recollections are layered over each other to form facts.

 

 

 

The Incinerator and chimney located in Basement 4 is a precursor to the rehabilitation process and involves the burning of the set pieces that were used to construct the traumatic events as a healing technique. The physical act of burning the instruments of torture and infringement, and moulding of it’s remnants in the form of brick making aids in the pursuit of finding closure.

 

The lowest basement (B-05) is programmed as the Rehabilitation center. This space serves as the culmination of the process and includes a variety of traditional and contemporary rehabilitation methods that aim to help in the recovery and treatment of the effects of trauma.

 

Public interaction is restricted to ground level, with a series of spyglasses penetrating into the basement, the public are given restricted views of the judicial processes below and act as non intrusive spectators in the process..

 

if we look at the space as an active participant in the judicial process what the project seeks to accomplish is the act of consuming raw proof spurred by trauma which undergoes the deconstructive processes of analysis, interpretation and rehabilitation to create a concrete form of not only memory but the potential for reconciliation. the product of the process is then laid bare for controlled  public interaction so that  what transpired can be remembered.

 

This project is given a 5 year life span after which The Constitution Hill Basement should be transferred to its original state, a parking lot. The pursuit for reconciliation and closure has gone on for over two decades and should not be dragged any longer.