The Fovnder’s Pillars is an Augmented Reality (AR) memorial and smart fabric visualisation honouring the six enslaved individuals once owned by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) founder William Barton Rogers. Drawing from six African regions, each represented by a distinct textile and its associated myth/story, the project weaves de colonial tropes and tales of freedom-making practices into AI generated magical imaginings that fuse classical colonial architecture with African futuristic storytelling. Activating the pillars, it reclaims space, transforming the façade into a living tribute to the African diaspora’s ancestral roots and confronting the Institute’s legacy of historical injustice. As a communal audio-visual technological experience, it transforms one of the main buildings on the campus, as a site of decolonial expression.
The project conjures a space of collective wisdom shaped by indigenous epistemologies and African knowledge systems. Drawing upon research of African textile, the project spans a selection of ancient and contemporary textiles from Mozambique (Capulana), Angola (Raffia), Nigeria (Indigo), Ivory Coast (Baoule), Sierra Leone(Gara) and Senegal(Bogolanfini). Each of the selected fabric was linked to a corresponding myth, story, or anecdote, then translated into smart fabric visualisations for future storytelling, creating living memorials to the communities they represent. This selection highlights the interconnectedness(es) of communities, cultures and shared techniques that exist despite the disruptions of the slave trade.
