Lauren-Loïs Duah

"Obroni (oborɔnyi) W'awu"

Initial Research Video on the spatial implications of Capitalist Overproduction. 

Mixed Footage Credits:

Broni W'awu ('Ghallywood/Kumawood' film, 2015) - featuring Van Vicker & Kwaku Manu 

"The Environmental Disaster that is Fuelled by Used Clothes and Fast Fashion" (2021) - Foreign Correspondent

"The true cost of fast fashion" (2018) - The Economist + @thewoolmarkcompany 

+ various screen recordings, collected images 

Captions + words: Lauren-Lois Duah

My initial proposal looked at ways in which I could create an architecture that responds to the issue of overconsumption, which reflects back on my initial research question. 

In my second proposal, I look at ways in which an architecture of care can be employed to support a small community in the supply-chain. The intended effects of this design are to disrupt the supply-chain by creating an architecture that provides care – through the shade from the canopies, as well as points of respite for the kayayei girls. In the beginning moment, it remains a typology that exists in the ‘in-betweens’ of the market stalls, however, this post+beam typology uses readily-available materials found around the market, and is adaptable and could grow upwards and around key spaces in the market to continue to solidify the market’s importance and need to be retained even as Accra expands and develops over time. 

Furthermore, I often questioned how and why this addition to the market would be effective – although the structure reflects the DIY nature of the stalls, it also aims to give permanence to the market through its architectural height and design consideration. To me this is a form of using architecture as a form of protest or resistance against gentrification, it is a way of retaining a common space which is frequented by those of a lower socio-economic background who still need and deserve equal access to the city despite its fast development and expansion. 

*From 'When the Site Speaks Back' - Part 3: "Kayayei Kasa" 

I spent a lot of time here researching three key traditional forms of textile making in Ghana – the first, the weaving of Kente cloth, the second the use of Adinkra symbols not only in textile printmaking, but also in the formwork of much of the architecture we visited in Ghana, and lastly the use of Wax-print cloth. One of the aims of the project was to use the visual language of colours, symbols and drawings to tell the story of my project, and thus the panels you see are informed by the textile technologies of traditional textile-making in Ghana.  

I also went through the process of creating my own Adinkra Symbol for this project, titled after the Kayayei (female porters) who are often referred to as the backbone of Kantamanto Market. There are many workers who keep markets like Kantamanto functioning, like Kayayei Girls who carry loads of up to 50kg including bales of clothing or second-hand goods on their heads while navigating Accra’s streets, roadsides and market paths in the sub-Saharan heat daily, often without breaks or points for respite. Kayayei are informal workers - this means they are unprotected by any worker's rights and susceptible to being exploited and overworking to make a living. In my renders, the Kayayei Print I designed while in Ghana becomes a motif and tribute to the labour and plight of these women.   

These panels aim to begin to unravel the threads of the second-hand clothing supply chain narrative, while presenting my speculative interventions. The process of mapping out the supply-chain in this format, using architectural drawing techniques as well as referring to traditional forms of story-telling and record keeping such as the oral tradition through recordings of conversations in the sites in this project form an alternative precedent for a visual masterplan which aims to show the connections and overlaps in this supply-chain story.  

The clothing supply chain story exists in multiple parts that act simultaneously to perpetually keep the processes in play. When unravelling the supply chain, there appear so many loose threads that the entirety of its cohesion begins to fall apart; every action has an equal and opposite reaction, or at least a connecting point. We often say ‘there is no ethical consumption under capitalism’, and this becomes increasingly apparent when we look at how everything is so closely interconnected, yet our alienation from the sites of production allows consumers to continue the capitalist-consumerist cycle. These panels aim to use alternate formats of data presentation (visual storytelling) to humanise elements of the supply-chain that western shoppers often have the luxury of being oblivious to...

Transcripts of interviews, conversations + sounds from Kantamanto Market, Accra + Kumasi (Ghana) form an ongoing archive of audio-based site analysis.

Click the link below for the audio version: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ufl3SRmX7VyXgoN8fdbES?si=f09c4ac4bd0c4b3d