'The Founder’s Pillars' is a site responsive Augmented Reality (AR) memorial and multimedia installation that transforms the neoclassical pillars of colonial buildings into dynamic monuments honouring the African diaspora. It weaves decolonial practises of freedom-making by fusing colonial architecture with African futurist storytelling rooted in textile traditions.
Developed through the MIT Open Documentary Lab, The Founders Pillars draws from six regions of the African continent, each represented by a distinct textile with an associated myth, folklore or contemporary story, bought to life by AI generated films and AR. As a travelling memorial, the project uses sound, animation and smart textile visualisation to embed ancestral memory and cosmology into digital cloth, activating public space. The experience not only reveals suppressed histories but celebrates African interconnectedness.
A continuing and travelling project, it has been publicly shown at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the New York Stock Exchange and the Texas Capitol Building in Austin, North America. It has also been shown at the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand as part of the Fakukesi Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a communal audio visual technological experience, it not only challenges the legacies of these buildings but transforms the pillars of colonial power into spaces of decolonial expression.
Texas State Capitol Building at SXSW2026
New York Stock Exchange at Tribeca2025
S+T+ARTS Prize
Wits Great Hall, Johannesburg
MIT Rogers Building, Boston
