Mmakhotso Lamola

Mmakhotso Lamola [she/her] is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, writer and architect based in Cape Town/South Africa.

She graduated from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg/South Africa and the University of Cape Town, where she completed her MA in architecture.

Her work avails itself of the immersive interstitial spaces of disciplines, unfolding through a vulnerable process-based research praxis. Here, she investigates the emotional landscapes that constitute urban space, where she attempts to forge new modes of archiving to create more personal, softer narratives about cities. She interrogates what she has termed the »invisible city« – which is intangible, spiritual, atmospheric and emotional – to understand how we belong and cultivate agency in our various spaces. Lamola explores this phenomenon by examining the histories of both well-documented and lesser-known narratives to unearth a complex and rich understanding of what it means to be a part of cities, landscapes and communities.

She produces modes of research that replace the impulse to discover with the impetus to recover, heal, listen, and give voice to the silenced; in this way she aims to complicate what seems simple and advocate for vulnerability above all else. Her projects are explorations of how one can find new languages to describe the city so that »everyone« can enter into its spatial dialogue equally, particularly in post-colonial contexts.

Lamola has been an artist in residence at The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Grigri Pixel Residency by MediaLab Prado, Residency 11:11, and the Institute of Creative Arts Fellowship. Her video installation, Simple Gestures, was exhibited in the group exhibition, A Conversation, curated by Luvuyo E. Nyawose. Her poetry has been published in the New Landscapes Anthology, as well as Visions of Home, both published by Lungs Project. Her writing has been featured in the Summer Flowers Pumflet, published by Wolff Architects. She is the founder and curator of the mobile workshop »The Belonging Collective Archive«. Along with Zahra Malkani and Luiza Proença, she is a member of the collaboration »Tricontinental Secret Garden«, which was founded during her residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude.