Exhibition “Inhabiting and building the house. Women in the vernacular architecture of Burkina Faso”.
September 12 to 27, 2022 Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura (ETSA) / Floor 1. North-South Corridor Curators: María Lidón de Miguel, Camilla Mileto, Lidia García Soriano, Fernando Vegas.
The study of vernacular architecture allows us to approach the knowledge of a culture through its constructions. Materials and techniques used, places generated, building typologies constructed have a reason for being and are explained by the complex social and cultural relationships established by a community in a specific environment. The adoption of the gender perspective allows an even closer approach to reality: Who inhabits certain spaces and others? Why? Who builds them? What role does each member of the family have in the configuration of the house and the village? How do these roles change with the modernization of society? In Burkina Faso, as in other contexts, the roles traditionally associated with women and men and their respective positions in the family have determined the configuration of households. Women, in charge of the care of their family members, have governed the affairs of the residential compound. However, their relationship with the house has not been limited to living in it. The roles assigned to them have also reserved for them a role in the process of construction and maintenance of the buildings. The construction techniques of the house, specific to each culture, have been an inheritance passed down through successive generations, with each member of the family performing specific tasks. The villages of Tiébéle and Tangassoko, Baasneere, Obiré and Samsana are taken as references to show the vernacular construction types of the Kassena (Gurunsi), Mossi, Gan and Lobi cultures, respectively. Without the intention of offering an exhaustive explanation of the wealth of constructive practices of these cultures, the images aim to bring to light and highlight the role of women in the configuration, construction, use and maintenance of this vernacular habitat and to bring the university community closer to other realities and possible perspectives of study. Exhibition included in the HERITAGE2022 congress – International Conference on Vernacular Heritage: Culture, People and Sustainability. Realized from the results of the ConBurkina project (ADSIDEO-Cooperation) and an ongoing thesis funded by a grant FPU 17/02428 (2018-2022) from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport at the UPV. Curated by: María Lidón de Miguel, Camilla Mileto, Lidia García Soriano, Fernando Vegas. Design and realization: María Lidón de Miguel More info: Research Group Res-Arquitectura