“We need to know where to look.” — An Interview with Ayça Beygo
Co-authored by Irem Kormaz + Travis Moy.
The curator of the Francis Kéré: Radically Simple exhibition at the Architekturmuseum der TU München, Ayça Beygo shares her behind-the- scene experiences from the creation process, her ideas and the ongoing transformation of the exhibition.
How would you describe your personal experience of the preparation of the exhibition?
Before I started the preparations of this exhibition, I knew nothing about the country Burkina Faso. In the research process and during my travels there, I realized it was learning-by-doing for me. And of course seeing the cultural features, meeting a lot of people, experiencing architecture, experiencing the climate and all these difficult conditions in Burkina Faso were very new to me. You cannot curate an exhibition on Francis Kéré without seeing the place.
What did you learn about the African Architecture?
For example, my experiences with children. We had to spend a lot of time together while documenting the architecture. I could understand just a little French, and they couldn’t speak English. However, when we tried to communicate I could understand what they meant and needed. These experiences also contributed to my curatorial concepts in the exhibition. I had a similar story with a taxi driver in the capital city Ouagadougou as well. I was alone and I didn’t know how to explain to him where I wanted to go. Then all of a sudden he started to speak in wonderful English with me. He was a nice, old, fatherlyfigure from Ghana. He took me to all themuseums and places I wanted to go that day. We became friends and he still calls me from Burkina Faso. This is the mentalityof people. They have a different mind-setin personal relations. They are very friendly, they are curious and they don’t hesitate to come closer, but not in a disturbing sense. It is not something that you can experience in Europe. This is a part of the culture of Burkina Faso, which taught me a lot of things about friendship and people
What impressed you the most in Burkina Faso?
What I saw was there is heritage, there is tradition -which is vernacular architecture- and this is as valuable as the knowledge in the Western world. This is not something to underestimate. Francis Kéré and local people still use these principles. They build raised roofs and openings which work with convection principle. They use clay, which also performs as an insulation material. But unfortunately, these kinds of principlesare not efficiently used in contemporary architecture. Technological materials and energy-consuming buildings are preferred instead. In Burkina Faso, I have learnt that it’s possible to design buildings that do not consume any energy at all, yet still provide comfort to the users. So there is knowledge, architectural knowledge in Africa. We need to look. We need to know where to look.
What is the intention of the exhibition?
Making a monographic show for a famous architect is a very risky job; you can easilybore people. What does a monographic show mean? The projects in chronological order, you know… I didn’t do that. Of courseI integrated all the projects in the exhibition,but from the very beginning I tried to find a narrative, a story for this exhibition. And I tried to concentrate on this story — the life of the architect and his connection to Burkina Faso. It was really important for me to tell the story with a very strong image of Burkina Faso, which is not widely known. That’s why we chose video as the medium. We shot in the city, in the villages, construction sites, landscapes… They made it possible for the visitor to get closer to the place.
The exhibition has two main titles and spaces: one is Burkina Faso village, the Black Room. You can see all the projects from Burkina Faso except one –and I will explain why. In the second area, the White Room showcases his buildings around the world, beyond the village. The structure of the exhibition resembles the life story of Kéré. Everything starts in Gando. Gando is the reason. Gando is the question and the answer. Then the exhibition changes according to the transformation in his life. And the only project that I didn’t includein the first room is the Parliament House in Ouagadougou; because it is one of the youngest projects and it belongs to home. After travelling around the world, his two very recent projects are in his two homes: in Berlin and in Ouagadougou. This section of the exhibition is all about returning home.
The exhibition booklet asks questions instead of summarizing information in the conventional way. What was the idea behind this?
We find the feedback of the visitors very important. We believe that there is a lot to learn from visitors. An exhibition is not a monologue; but a dialogue. It involves reciprocal transfer. When we communicate something to the visitors, we need to get a response from them as well. That is why I wanted to integrate visitors into the exhibition with these very personal questions. I wanted to see what they felt during their visits. And as the second step of this exhibition, I’m currently documenting their answers. They are going to be exhibited in the last room of the exhibition, so that people will be able to read what the others have felt. So it’s going to be something like a discussion and a communicative platform. An exhibition is an ongoing process for us. It also changes and transforms in itself and the visitors help us to transform it as well. This is a better way of learning, a better way of changing things.
How would you answer the last question of the exhibition booklet yourself: “Architecture can…” and “Architecture can’t…”?
Architecture can provoke, and it should provoke. And architecture can’t eliminate bad politics — but it can influence people and people can choose better ones.
This interview was held in scope of the seminar “Architectural Communications” given by Dr. Sandra Hofmeister, at the Technical University of Munich, in February 2017.)
