This series of work is from an ongoing personal project documenting urbanity in architecture, space, and the urban dweller. Although based in Windhoek, the work traverses Namibia exploring different forms of “citiness”, spatial uses, and the perceived normalcy of the urban environments: from architectural dominance, to socio-spatial influences on the patterns of convenience, to the disproportionality of buildings, the number of people, and the absence of the urban dweller. There is something innately strange about the constant need to build and claim space; about the quantity of built infrastructure constructed to contain some form of lived experience evidenced by all the windows in sight, regulated by law to maintain a perception of spatial order, and to claim the coveted title of being a global contemporary city. The work argues for different kinds of “city” and urban perceptions and space-making in different Namibian towns.
Natache Sylvia Iilonga is a Namibian architect-in-training, public space artist, and photographer. She holds a BArch from the University of KwaZulu Natal and a Masters of Technology in Architectural Technology (Professional) from the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. She is an executive board member of the Namibian Arts Association, External Reviewer of Unit19 GSA UJ, and a co-founder of the Decolonising Space Group which organises public space discussions and installations focusing on spatially-experimental dialogue around access to land, socio-spatial decolonisation, gender, identity, racism, architectural urbanisation and the decolonisation of urban space in Namibian society.