Rianna Onzivu is an Architecture student at The University of Edinburgh and the Managing Editor of Crumble Magazine. She dabbles in writing, photography, printmaking and filmmaking, and her work explores architecture’s relationships with land, reciprocity and ontology.

By the arc of the sun

Rianna Onzivu

My grandmother, who has resided in the same mountainous village in the North-West of Uganda for eighty-seven years, uses the sun to tell the time. Her days tend to consist of arising as the cock crows, talking to her three dogs, and peeling ground nuts under the mango tree at the edge of the compound. She comes from the Lugbara tribe, where ontology is passed down through oral knowledge, and around 60% of expressions concerning time refer to the sun – fitting, as Uganda lies on the equator. Witnessing my grandmother’s relationship with the sun, and her mediation of movement with atmosphere, has ingrained in me the belief that space and time aren’t neutral, but are lived and embodied. To find out what time it is, she asks not of numerical minutes or hours, but instead asks, ‘How far has the sun ascended?’. She gives the sun agency, and measures time in terms of the arc of the day, making space for her life within natural rhythms. Rather than being disciplined by Western concepts of linearity, my grandmother embraces traditional ways of marking time through engaging with the movement of light, the intensity of the sun, and the positions of shadows, thus inscribing temporality into her body and the architecture it inhabits. Like many other examples of vernacular Ugandan architecture, my grandmother’s compound echoes this same unspoken wisdom. Her home, like many other homes in Uganda, is oriented around natural light, containing shaded spaces to rest, and open, airy courtyards: shaped by how sunlight and shadow interact with walls, thresholds and verandas. In these everyday spaces, the interconnectedness of sun, body, and architecture comes to light.

For the past two decades of my life, I’ve been privileged enough to return to my motherland for a few weeks of every summer.  Time rarely feels linear or segmented in Uganda; life seems to be guided by a collective rhythm and shaped by the rituals engrained within the culture. Daily rituals such as greetings, shared meals, and storytelling act as cyclical anchors that hold life together and – whether outdoors or within built environments – are intrinsically connected to the arc of the sun, the textures of the earth, the soundscape of birds and insects, and the smell of food being cooked. Spending time in Uganda awakened me to the importance of multi-sensory engagement, and how all aspects of space attune the body to place. By foregrounding tacit bodily wisdom, both the natural and built environment are guided by embodied rhythm, and having daily rituals so dependent on the sights, smells and sounds of immediate surroundings facilitates the preservation of sacred cultural memory, and allowed me to feel grounded within a culture I may not always fully feel a part of.

My annual pilgrimages have allowed me to realise that space itself is integral to creative work. Creative space, when being utilised by people of colour, shouldn’t refer to a fixed studio or office space, but should encompass the full fabric of the surrounding environment. Neutrality and productivity measures as defining elements of creative space are detrimental to people of colour, as the space we take up is inherently layered and relational. Safety within a creative space is brought about by cultural recognition, and elements such as sensory cues, through burning incense or embracing vernacular materials, like spear grass and tree bark fibres; ancestral practices, like participating in tea ceremonies or honouring the sun; and rituals, such as a storytelling circle at the end of a work session or sharing a meal together, can allow people to feel grounded in their space, and reminded that they belong. Moreover, in cultivating a space like this, space itself becomes a collaborator in the work produced, guiding its form and pace. Through adopting collective rhythms, creativity can be sustained beyond the individual, and creatives of colour can resist capitalist pressures of speed and extractive time by embracing atemporal, cyclical belonging through both the body and the spaces where creation happens.