Rayan Elnayal, George Aboagye Williams, Sachini Jayasena

Thursday 18th November 2021, 6.30pm

Tessa Blackstone Lecture Theatre [0003]

‘House of Many Cultures: The Others’ Story’, curated by Rahesh Ram and Rayan Elnayal, was an exhibition in the Gallery at the Stockwell Street building in Greenwich, finished 12th November.

The notion of what it is to be British has arisen yet again in the light of current debates instigated by Brexit, Black Lives Matter, the toppling of statues that celebrated slave traders and structural racism. It seems, like more than ever, understanding the multitude of cultural identities that inhabit Britain is needed. The exhibition invited you to explore some of these cultures through the conduit of work undertaken by University of Greenwich alumni who embedded their cultural identities into their graduate projects. The work selected was specifically by British architecture students with hybrid identities (i.e., with diasporic backgrounds). The exhibition showcased projects that students used to explore their own culture and identity through an architectural lens. It is both an investigation into the self and also an opportunity for others to learn and understand a British demographic that is sometimes seen as the other. In this lecture, three of the exhibitors will be discussing their projects. All are graduates from the MArch Architecture programme at the University of Greenwich:

Rayan Elnayal, ‘A Magic Realist Afrabia’.

George Aboagye Williams, ‘Afrofuturism the Grounds of Discovery – A Case Study in Cultural Identity’.

Sachini Jayasena, ‘The Elephant in the Room: The Sri Lankan British Town’.