Colonial Debris, Decolonial Horizons – Hill Station film screening

This film, forms part of the exhibition Hill Station: architecture and the altitudes of Empire exhibited at RIBA-TATE in 2025. It explores the architectural history of colonial-era health segregation in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and its entanglements with the expansion of the British Empire and the emergence of tropical medicine. It focuses on a key moment in 1899, when the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine sent an expedition to Freetown to investigate malaria prevention, recommending the construction of an elevated enclave of ‘houses for Europeans’ overlooking the city.

Through film and architectural research, Killian O’Dochartaigh and Edward Lawrenson explore how architecture mediated colonial ideas of climate, race, and health, and how these logics linked the port cities of Liverpool and Freetown. The project forms part of the wider research initiative Salone Drift and is supported by Arts Council Ireland, the Graham Foundation, University College London, and the University of Edinburgh/Edinburgh College of Art, with curatorial support from RIBA.

Project by Killian O’Dochartaigh and Edward Lawrenson / Curatorial support and exhibition coordination by RIBA / Film directed by Edward Lawrenson, produced by Edward Lawrenson and Killian O’Dochartaigh, featuring Ibrahim Abdullah. Sound design by Philippe Ciompi / Image by Luciano Piazza and Edward Lawrenson / Model designed by Killian O’Dochartaigh / Fabrication by Killian O’Dochartaigh and Richard Collins.

For more see https://www.riba.org/explore/exhibitions/hill-station/

Image: Hill Station Model ©Killian O’Dochartaigh and Edward Lawrenson.

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