Jason Evans 8 December 2006 Articles, General 414 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

Right now I’m writing basically about what I eventually want to study further in graduate school: violence, memory, and conversion in the context of Church space in Rwanda. The basic premise is that the intended use of space was to become a space of unity and redemption; that the history of ethnic (read political) identities were to be replaced by a collective identity in the Blood of the Eucharist. You know, the basic romantic notion behind church, providing a place for Hutus and Tutsis an opportunity to unite, throwing off political divisional qualifiers and embracing a collective one.

But, when we look at buildings of any type we can assume and situate them into spheres of influence, ie consumer, governmental, or (in this case) spiritual. Cities are designed this way. Architecture makes claims, has goals, signifies, which ultimately poses a question. Did this space achieve what was intended, without words, without wanting to say anything, without having to say anything; hence, does it need explanation? A French philosopher, Baudrillard, calls this the radicality of architecture. Meaning, no matter what the intention is, the truth regarding architecture becomes involuntary. The space moves, no matter what and how words are used to describe a certain space (in particular, the church), the truth of its potential comes in the unspoken, linguistic void, of its literal essence. This essence is the fluid redefining of space that can take forms, he suggests contrary, if not opposite, to the reality of its conception.

Now, looking at Rwanda, the church spoke of unity, looked unified; people intermarried, had bar-b-qs…they did life together. But as some would suggest, the blood of Christ never penetrated their political identities. They brought them into the church, and let that dictate the movement. Unfortunately, the actual, the reality of these spaces in Rwanda, manifest itself into an altogether different transubstantiation–maybe the blood of Christ did change the individual, but the blood of the political changed and presented the community with the true radicality of the church–its ability to kill, and kill scores.

No matter the intention of the church, the reason it was built, the truth of its existence transforms when the masses enter it with other intentions and allegiances that supersede that of Christ. But make no mistake, this is not, on any level, an image of that age old African problem of tribalism; this is modernity; this is the distinct realm of the political where only notions of friend and enemy exist. How often have we seen this? –The intention of a space subsumed by distinctions such as these.

Nevertheless, as a result, the truth of church space in Rwanda is witnessed (not heard) in its transformation from a space of violence to that of memory. A sad result of a truly modern version of transubstantiation–a place of redemption and forgiveness changed by a drop of blood into display of failure and violent memory.