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Lys Divine Ndemeye    

Principal of the Remesha Design Lab & Founder of the Black+Indigenous Design Collective; Landscape Designer & Educator

Lys Divine Ndemeye is an acclaimed landscape designer, artist, and educator. She is the principal and Creative Director of Remesha Design Lab, a research and landscape design studio on a mission to design beautiful and healing landscapes inspired by ancestral wisdom and Afrocentric values. Before embarking on her design career, Ndemeye gained experience in strategic and urban planning across various municipalities, accumulating over a decade of experience in community building and engagement.

Ndemeye’s academic credentials include a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Human Geography. Her exceptional contributions to the landscape architecture field have earned her prestigious accolades, including the 2020 Olmsted Scholar Award and the British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects President’s Award in 2022.

Additionally, Ndemeye is the founder of the Black+Indigenous Design Collective, a social enterprise working to build the capacity of Black and Indigenous Youth in the spatial design fields and public art, and working to increase the visibility and agency of Black and Indigenous communities in urban spaces. She is also the host of the Design unmuted podcast, and Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

Speech Topics


Afrofuturism: A Decolonizing Paradigm in Landscape Architecture

In this session, we use critical spatial discourses to unpack the colonial stories in Landscape Architecture and offer equity-based alternatives. Using Afrofuturism as a framework, this workshop will serve as a ground to daylight and dismantle colonial narratives based in extractive and oppressive systems and will present methodologies for life-stewarding practices. Afrofuturism is rooted in ancient wisdom from Africa and around the world and operates at the “intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation” to imagine social change (Womack, 2013). As we envision equitable and sustainable futures, it’s important to design Landscape practices based in truth-telling, justice, reciprocity and care. We will cover topics centered around spatial justice, ethnobotany and decolonization.

Learning Objectives:

  • Identifying colonial based narratives in Landscape Architecture
  • Foundations of Afrofuturism as a design paradigm
  • Methodologies and approaches to decolonizing practice and narratives in Landscape Architecture through Afrofuturism & African cosmologies
  • Ethnobotany

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