Ngwao no. 1: Conserving Trauma

Ngwao no. 1: Conserving Trauma
The Women’s Jail at Constitution Hill is more than bricks and bars — it is a site of memory, pain, resilience, and reckoning. Once a place of incarceration for thousands of women under apartheid, it now stands as a living museum and civic space.

The first essay explores how we conserve sites of trauma: balancing remembrance with healing, authenticity with adaptation, and memory with public responsibility. The essay forms part of a longer series where I will be thinking through heritage titled Ngwao.  The works is part of my MPhil in the conservation of the built-environment at UCT.