The Ma Research Project

BFA are fundraising to create a film documenting our research into matriarchal and spatial practices on the African continent.

 

LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD

Learning from the past and researching the present, our insights will inform our emerging practice, exploring an approach to designing and city making that is equitable, environmentally and socially sustainable.

 
 

TIMELINE & PROGRAMME

  • A rammed earth workshop in collaboration with Hive Earth. This workshop will take place in London. It will be an opportunity to explore the use of earth as a building material and as an application of the philosophy of learning from the past to inform future practices and innovations. (Sankofa) 

  • A research trip to Dakar, Senegal taking place during the Dakar Biennale in November 2024. While in Dakar we will engage with practitioners primarily through interviews,  

  • A film documenting our learnings from the trip. This will be our primary research output, archive our engagement with the people we meet, the spaces we experience, the practices we learn about and the cultures we encounter.

  • Using the film as a stimulus, our members and wider community will be invited to respond to a brief inspired by our research in Dakar with work the produced shared at an exhibition taking place in March 2025.

  • The research programme will culminate in a publication that will be released mid 2025. This will act as a permanent record of the year’s activities.

5 WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT

  1. Donate - We will be launching a second round of Crowdfunding soon. Kindly get in touch to donate to the project. You are also welcome to donate via our general donations link

  2. Share with at least one other person on socials or via your newsletter, here are our graphics!

  3. Book a CPD with BFA on a Friday lunch-time in July for your practice, slots here.

  4. Offer your organisation’s venue and provide refreshments for our events, email us.

  5. Help with press, write or feature us in an article or online platform. Access our comms pack.

 

THE MA RESEARCH PROJECT EXPLAINED

The title ‘ma’ - a term of endearment and respect used to refer to matriarchs in the African context. The research title also plays on the academic abbreviation for a 'Master of Arts'.

Whilst nurturing the BFA community remains and will always be BFA’s priority, our ambitions have evolved. We want to move on from solely ‘talking’ about issues around minority representation in the industry, to addressing them through ‘creating’ and ‘making’, allowing BFA to define its architectural and creative practice.

We want to engage with a range of partners and collaborators to deliver projects at various scales both in the UK and further afield. This could range from exhibition design and temporary pavilions to housing and wider involvement in regeneration masterplanning. The ultimate aim is to facilitate the involvement of black women within the delivery of built projects and design interventions towards a more equitable built environment. We want to model an ethical and sustainable black female-led design practice that champions social and environmental value in every output.

Future ambitions 

Our aim is to evolve, fine-tune and replicate this project over the coming years and through the process, model an ethical and sustainable black female-led design practice that champions social and environmental value in every output. Our research will therefore seek out environmentally, socially and economically sustainable practices that can be implemented in the cities and urban contexts that define our everyday lives.