ASSEMBLY + RE-READING

Commisioned by RIBA

Assembly is a commissioned work by the Royal Institute of British Architects responding to the Dominion Screen in the Henry Florence Memorial Hall. Conceived as a functional object, it invites gathering and conversation, creating a shared space for critical engagement with the screen’s symbols and their contemporary architectural resonance.

The final intervention introduces a new panel synthesising the project’s research and public engagement. Developed through dialogue around home, ritual, and representation, the panel draws on the artist’s Ghanaian heritage and a provocation by James Baldwin. It depicts a collective festival merging rituals from the Ashanti Yam, Damba, and Homowo traditions, presenting cultural practice as hybrid, communal, and evolving, and proposing architecture as a carrier of intangible qualities such as memory, celebration, and social cohesion.

Additional frames placed over the Dominion Screen fragment and obscure selected details, generating alternative readings and redirecting attention to overlooked elements. Through selective concealment, the intervention reorients interpretation and deepens engagement with the people, places, and practices represented.

2024

Photographer: Agnese Sanvito
Jackie King