ABSTRACT
If we are to look for a model of the way in which political content in a building might be understood as a form of ‘projection’ we might consider the work of the Polish-Canadian public artist, Krzysztof Wodiczko, who literally projects politically loaded images on to buildings as a commentary on the politics of use of that building. In 1985 Wodiczko projected the image of a swastika onto the pediment of South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, London (see Fig. 7.1).1 It is an image which has a particular significance in South Africa, where supporters of apartheid, such as the AWB, would consciously evoke the swastika and other
emblems of Nazi Germany, and where critics of the regime would likewise use the emblem in graffiti and other forms of political commentary. This act was intended as a political protest against the trade negotiations then underway between the apartheid government of South Africa and the British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The projection of the swastika onto the building raises some interesting questions about the relationship between buildings and politics. In particular it highlights the condition of buildings which have been blemished with the stain of evil. His projection of ‘contentladen’ images on to monuments and buildings echoes the process by which human beings ‘project’ their own readings onto them, as though on to some blank cinematographic screen. And it is precisely this image of South Africa House with a swastika projected on to it which provides us with the clue as to how buildings in South Africa can and have been appropriated. The issue becomes the problem of how to make that projected image fade, or how to supplant it with another image which effectively cancels it out. And it is the question of use and associations with use – as outlined earlier – which may dictate these issues.
