V. Mitch McEwen: I'm V. Mitch McEwen. The project that I have produced is called R:R, Republica:Reconstructed. Republica is both a place and not a place. It's a fictional nation state and it's an idea that is authored by an artist named Kristina Kay Robinson, who's a native of New Orleans and my idea partner. It's a place that emerges from a key event, which is the largest rebellion against slavery in North America. It was a failed rebellion that took place in 1811. And Republica is, effectively, New Orleans in an alternate reality, where the rebellion is successful.
There's a few key materials: one is bamboo and the other is various forms of textiles. The bamboo it's a material that is very strong. You could use it instead of metal, as rebar in concrete. The bamboo with the felt woven around it is a building method that could replace carpentry, building upon the skills of someone who would braid hair, the skills of someone who would produce textiles, someone who's familiar with patterns. Part of what Republica is thinking is not just how to use new materials but how to use old materials in a different political, economic reality.
I didn't want to design an object. I wanted to figure out a way of doing architecture that was blacker than any way I had ever done architecture before, to tell a story, really, of Black fugitivity and Black liberation. If Black resistance had been more successful, there could be all kinds of engineering possibilities that we don't even have access to in this version of this country. What R:R is positing, is that with the knowledge that we already have we could be building in a way that we don't know yet.