Cultural Architecture

Cultural Architecture was a four-week applied inquiry into how narratives, aesthetics, and values function as world-building tools.

Rather than treating culture as identity expression alone, this series examined culture as infrastructure — the invisible architecture shaping what is imaginable, legitimate, and possible.

Through Afrocentric and diasporic knowledge systems, participants explored how dominant narratives are constructed, how cultural hegemony operates, and how counter-narratives can be designed deliberately and responsibly.

The core premise: every society is architected through stories, symbols, aesthetics, and shared meaning. If we do not consciously design these, we inherit them.

Across four modules, the series examined:

• The foundations of Afrocentric thought and world-building
• Cultural hegemony and narrative dominance
• Developing cultural confidence and aesthetic literacy
• Translating indigenous values into contemporary systems
• Afro-futurism as applied foresight
• Designing for plural futures

Hosted in collaboration with Uzoma Orji, Cultural Architecture invited participants to see themselves not merely as professionals or creatives, but as cultural architects — individuals shaping collective reality through everyday choices, institutions, and imagination.

This series is part of Ijeruka’s Field Notes archive — our ongoing study of Black intellectual and cultural traditions as strategic intelligence for development and shaping the future. It reflects the calibre of interdisciplinary inquiry that shapes the intellectual backbone of our village.