Linda Toven Naganathan

About

Linda is a Norwegian-Sri Lankan multidisciplinary designer whose practise focuses on exploring, identifying and challenging narratives attached to space. Through research, writing and making she seeks to create architectures that hold space for inclusive new perspectives and wider audiences. During her studies at the RCA she has focused on creating commentaries that critique widely accepted narratives through the use of language. Her first project at the college concerned itself with how a textile language could be used as a tool to resist the prevailing colonial amnesia in Portugal, using the sites of Lisbon and Barreiro to connect space to textile, and textile to resistance. 

Her final project, Julius & the Witching Hour, is a children’s picture book that challenges constrictions, norms and expectations in mainstream, Norwegian society. By subverting the country’s constitution day parade into a story that aims to understand societal absurdities, the project becomes a playful, yet sharp critique of the status quo. In Julius & the Witching Hour, the city of Oslo acts as the silent protagonist, allowing for new fictional narratives that speculate on reality. 

“Oslo was sleeping. Sleepy Oslo, chilly Oslo. Silent, but busy. The wind howled and shared secrets. But was anyone around to hear them? Only a pair of red and white striped pants, a sullen mood, and sunken eyes. A crouched back and heavy feet. He was far from the zoo, far from the light…”