DOCSLIB.ORG

Mapping the Memories: Politics, Place and Identity in the District Six Museum, Cape Town Charmaine Mceachern Available Online: 25 Aug 2010

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Mapping the Memories: Politics, Place and Identity in the District Six Museum, Cape Town Charmaine Mceachern Available Online: 25 Aug 2010 This article was downloaded by: [University of Toronto Libraries] On: 01 March 2012, At: 22:58 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csid20 Mapping the Memories: Politics, Place and Identity in the District Six Museum, Cape Town Charmaine Mceachern Available online: 25 Aug 2010 To cite this article: Charmaine Mceachern (1998): Mapping the Memories: Politics, Place and Identity in the District Six Museum, Cape Town, Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 4:3, 499-521 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504639851744 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/ page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Downloaded by [University of Toronto Libraries] at 22:58 01 March 2012 SocialIdentities,Volume4,Number3,1998 MappingtheMemories:Politics,PlaceandIdentity intheDistrictSix Museum,CapeTown CHARMAINEMcEACHERN Universityo fAdelaide Introduction Inpost-apartheid South Africa,`the new South Africa’is the most obvious way in which people in all kindsoflocatio nsand structuralpositionsconfrontand seektogive some name tob oth the obviousandmassive politicalchanges which have occurredand the hopes forcu lturalandsocialchange whichhave accompanied them. 1 Thatthe label `the newSouth Africa’is perhapsthe dominant form ofa noverall identity forth is nationalpolity obscures the uncertainty, and precariousness, ofthis acto fconfrontation.Just whatis `new’in post-apartheid SouthA frica?And whatdoesit mean tobe S outh Africanin the `new’South Africa?Howc an this identity achieve some kindof stability, someform ofinte grity? Canthe past beu sedtoes tablish notju st the factof`ne wness’,butalso toth ink aboutwhatit is, or canbe,byreferenceto whatit is not.I nthe past andits struggles liesthe impetusforthe nation conceived asunity in diversity, the principle fork nowingor interpretingthe past thusbeingembedded in the present(Boyarin,1994,p.x).Thus also emerges the enormoussigni® canceof mem ory in SouthA fricatod ay. Memory is centralin socialthe orisingand critique in contemporary South Africatod ay(one couldc ompare this with the relationship between nation and memory in Israel;Young, 1993,p. 210,Huyssen, 1994).T he Truth andRec- onciliation Commission is probably the most obvious andvisible manifestation, publicly engagingthe apartheid regimein termsofits oppressive strategies andhumanrights violations.Here,one is mindfulof B oyarin’sclose link between the role ofme mory and identity asnation-state (1994,p.iix).InSouth Downloaded by [University of Toronto Libraries] at 22:58 01 March 2012 Africath is processmustbecontextualised through other attempts toprov ide reconciliation and`truth’tom ark the endofoppressive regimesandsignalnew beginnings. Post-warGermany(see forex ample Geyer, 1996;Young, 1993, Chapter1)and Argentina’sreturn todem ocracy aftermilitary rule come immediately tom ind.SouthA frica’sownparticular Truth andReconciliation process certainly drew on otherattempts tohea lshattered nations, the public consultation andfactga theringprocess includinginputfrom South American andEast Europeancountries(see Boraine and Levy, 1995).U ltimately,some formssuchasElSalvador’sinternationally organised commission were rejected and,asAndre duToit putit, S outhA frica’sTruth Commission became a `project ofthe state’(1995,p .95),adecision which suitedthe factth athere rememberingandaccountingforthe past are also encompassedandcircum- 1350-4630/98/030499-23$7.00 Ó 1998CarfaxPub lishingLtd 500 CharmaineM cEachern scribed within the negotiatedpoliticalsettlementwhich puta nendtothe apartheid regime. Yet, atthe sametimethatthe harrowing tales ofperson alsufferingtold to the Truth andReconciliation Commissionhearingsare beinggivenpublic form through daily mediap ublicity andcommentary, in myriadother locations apartheid is alsobeingengaged throughmemory, always partialandcertainly from the perspective ofthe present. Numerousexhibitions,seminars and conferencestestify toa ndprovide critiquesofthe plethoraof w aysin which apartheid operatedasacomprehensive systemofru le, reachingdownintothe very minutiaeof social life .Asanexercise ofrem embering,the new South Africa’sactof self-c onstruction is more thanthe willed action and rhetoricof anew governmentandstate. Italso exists in these manyaccounts,all ofw hich, though partialandoftencompeting(Young,1993,p.xi),have somethingtosa y aboutthe present, the `new South Africa’,through their acts ofre membering the past. These themes ofre memberingforthe understanding ofb oth the present andthe future emerge asacentral problematicin all kindsofrep resentation generally butalso in the livesoford inary South Africans strivingtoc ome to termswith whatwasdone tothem or in their name. They demonstrate the profoundwaysin whichall kindsofm acro-processestake form andpowerin the lives ofpe ople atthe most micro-levels (Abu-Lughod,1993).Toappreciate the signi® canceof this situatedness ofhistori calprocessesoftra nsformation (ComaroffandComaroff,1992),this paperconsiders acase studyofone ofthe placesof en gagement betweenpast, presentandfuture which characterise contemporary South Africa.The focusofthe studyis the District Six Museum in Cape Town,which wasestablished in December1994.The studyis basedon twoperiodsofpa rticipant observationin 1996and 1997.O bservationw as supplemented byandinterrogated through interviewsand informaltalkswith museumstaffandvisitors. The museum is apowerfulengagementwith SouthA frica’spast, partly because its rememberingis located in the very heart ofa partheid philosophy andsocialengineering,the construction ofthe apartheid city.Notju st an historicala ccount ofthe harm done through this vision topeop le andplaces, the museumalso providesforthe active construction andperformance of memory which is atthe same timeacritique ofap artheid itself.T he paper’s Downloaded by [University of Toronto Libraries] at 22:58 01 March 2012 studyofth is constellation ofcity construction, memory andcritique is facili- tatedusingthe work ofM ichel de Certeau(1988).T he insights ofhis work on walking the city are particularly usefulfor a criticalu nderstandingofthe relationship betweenpastandpresentwithin this constellation asit is manifest in the museum.In particularde Certeauprovidesawayofth inkingaboutthe relationship betweenplace,people andpolitics in remembering. In turn, we canopen upalittle more the symbolicterra in ofthe `newSouthA frica’in these very transitionaltime s. From DistrictSixto theD istrictSixM useum District Six wasthe sixth DistrictofC ape Town,aninnercity area which from Politics,Placea nd Identityin theDistrictS ixM useum,CapeTown 501 the nineteenth century hadhoused people from the workingandartisanal classes,manyofwhom worked in the city andatthe nearbydocks.T he District extended from the harbourup into the lower reaches ofthe Devil’sPeakand from the commercialcentre ofthe city tothe edge ofthe suburbs.Asone would expectofsuchanarea,DistrictSix hadbeen very heterogeneousfor a very longtime,anintegrated area in which white,coloured andAfrican workingclasspeople all lived (Bickford-Smith,1992),though actualownership ofp roperty waslargely concentratedin the handsofwhite landlords(Western, 1981,p .155).T here are clearindicationsthatsuch heterogeneity wasseenas problematicw ell before apartheid.Asearly as1901Africanpeople were removedfrom DistrictSix toa newtownship,Ndabeni, ostensibly because of the outbreakofp lague (Goldin, 1987,p.162).Inthe twentieth century, rapid population expansion (particularly under the in¯uen ceof ru ral in-migration) andthe general disinclination oflan dlordsand the Cape TownCity Council to maintain andimprove housingandgeneralamenitiesproducedw hatall researchers identify asagrosslyovercrowded and rundownareaÐa`slum’ In 1948the NationalParty cametopow erin SouthA frica,h avingrunon a platform which promised tode alwith overcrowded urbanareaswhich re- sulted from massive anduncontrolled migration into the citiesfrom the country. AsMabin says,`Insome respects apartheid wasa(racist)re sponse to previousfailure todevelo pcoherenturbanisation policy’ (1992,p.19).Popu- lation control thus became acornerstone ofap artheid policy asit sought to organise andchannelcapitalist developmentin South Africafo rthe bene®tof one sectorof the population,white South Africans, through whatMamdani calls `arti® cialdeurbanisation’(1996,pp .28,9).T his meantthatthe colour segregation whichwasalreadyafeature ofpre-apartheid SouthA frica(Peche y, 1994,M amdani,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 00 Staffrider Volume 8 Numbers 3 & 4 Worker Culture Ra
    Voi 8Nos3 &4, 1989 Voi 8Nos3 &4, 1989 R6-95 (excl. GST) 00 Staffrider Volume 8 Numbers 3 & 4 Worker Culture Ravan (Cast in a RacialMould i EDDIE WEBSTER Racial..ould......... R 18.00 Working life (A People's History of S A Vol 2) LULI CALLINICOS R22.50 SGold and Workers (A People's History of S A Vol 1) LULI CALLINICOS R14-00 Industrial and Trade Union Organisation 1944-1955 JON LEWIS R15.00 The Sun Shall Rise for the Workers MANDLENKOSI MAKHOBA R1.00 A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa HELEN BRADFORD R45.00 The Independent Trade Unions 1974-1984 Ed. JOHANN MAREE R21.00 Building Tomorrrow Today ISTEVEN FRIEDMAN R21.00 My Life Struggle PETRUS TOM 12 CZ1r I Pass Controls and the Urban African Proletariat DOUG HINDSON R14.00 Migrant Labour FRANCIS WILSON R3.50 Press Staffrider Volume 8 Numbers 3 & 4 Worker Culture Edited by Frank Meintjies and Mi Hlatshwayo with A.W. Oliphant and Ivan Vladislavi Ravan Press Johannesburg 6 © The contributors as listed on the contents page of this book All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Copyright is held by the individual contributors of all material, including all visual and graphic material. Anyone wishing to reproduce material from this publication should approach the individual contributors c/o the publishers. First Published 1989 ISSN 0258-7211 Cover art (by Shelley Sacks) reprinted here with the kind permission of the Workers Library Cape Town.
    [Show full text]
  • Gustavus Symphony Orchestra Performance Tour to South Africa
    Gustavus Symphony Orchestra Performance Tour to South Africa January 21 - February 2, 2012 Day 1 Saturday, January 21 3:10pm Depart from Minneapolis via Delta Air Lines flight 258 service to Cape Town via Amsterdam Day 2 Sunday, January 22 Cape Town 10:30pm Arrive in Cape Town. Meet your MCI Tour Manager who will assist the group to awaiting chartered motorcoach for a transfer to Protea Sea Point Hotel Day 3 Monday, January 23 Cape Town Breakfast at the hotel Morning sightseeing tour of Cape Town, including a drive through the historic Malay Quarter, and a visit to the South African Museum with its world famous Bushman exhibits. Just a few blocks away we visit the District Six Museum. In 1966, it was declared a white area under the Group areas Act of 1950, and by 1982, the life of the community was over. 60,000 were forcibly removed to barren outlying areas aptly known as Cape Flats, and their houses in District Six were flattened by bulldozers. In District Six, there is the opportunity to visit a Visit a homeless shelter for boys ages 6-16 We end the morning with a visit to the Cape Town Stadium built for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Enjoy an afternoon cable car ride up Table Mountain, home to 1470 different species of plants. The Cape Floral Region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the richest areas for plants in the world. Lunch, on own Continue to visit Monkeybiz on Rose Street in the Bo-Kaap. The majority of Monkeybiz artists have known poverty, neglect and deprivation for most of their lives.
    [Show full text]
  • Your Guide to Myciti
    Denne West MyCiTi ROUTES Valid from 29 November 2019 - 12 january 2020 Dassenberg Dr Klinker St Denne East Afrikaner St Frans Rd Lord Caledon Trunk routes Main Rd 234 Goedverwacht T01 Dunoon – Table View – Civic Centre – Waterfront Sand St Gousblom Ave T02 Atlantis – Table View – Civic Centre Enon St Enon St Enon Paradise Goedverwacht 246 Crown Main Rd T03 Atlantis – Melkbosstrand – Table View – Century City Palm Ln Paradise Ln Johannes Frans WEEKEND/PUBLIC HOLIDAY SERVICE PM Louw T04 Dunoon – Omuramba – Century City 7 DECEMBER 2019 – 5 JANUARY 2020 MAMRE Poeit Rd (EXCEPT CHRISTMAS DAY) 234 246 Silverstream A01 Airport – Civic Centre Silwerstroomstrand Silverstream Rd 247 PELLA N Silwerstroom Gate Mamre Rd Direct routes YOUR GUIDE TO MYCITI Pella North Dassenberg Dr 235 235 Pella Central * D01 Khayelitsha East – Civic Centre Pella Rd Pella South West Coast Rd * D02 Khayelitsha West – Civic Centre R307 Mauritius Atlantis Cemetery R27 Lisboa * D03 Mitchells Plain East – Civic Centre MyCiTi is Cape Town’s safe, reliable, convenient bus system. Tsitsikamma Brenton Knysna 233 Magnet 236 Kehrweider * D04 Kapteinsklip – Mitchells Plain Town Centre – Civic Centre 245 Insiswa Hermes Sparrebos Newlands D05 Dunoon – Parklands – Table View – Civic Centre – Waterfront SAXONSEAGoede Hoop Saxonsea Deerlodge Montezuma Buses operate up to 18 hours a day. You need a myconnect card, Clinic Montreal Dr Kolgha 245 246 D08 Dunoon – Montague Gardens – Century City Montreal Lagan SHERWOOD Grosvenor Clearwater Malvern Castlehill Valleyfield Fernande North Brutus
    [Show full text]
  • ASAI Introduces New Research on the Art of Lionel Davis
    H-Africa ASAI Introduces New Research on the Art of Lionel Davis Discussion published by Natasha Himmelman on Friday, October 10, 2014 Awakenings: Impulses and threads in the art of Lionel Davis Mario Pissarra http://asai.co.za/artist/lionel-davis/ Lionel Davis is a significant figure in South African art circles. Core elements of his personal biography are well known, and his contribution as an artist is integral to accounts of seminal art organisations such as the Community Arts Project, Vakalisa, and the Thupelo Workshop. His early history as a District Six resident and political prisoner has made him an invaluable resource for post apartheid heritage projects, such as the District Six and Robben Island Museums. An articulate, charismatic and sociable personality, Davis is popular and respected, with an active public life and media presence. Despite his prominent profile, Davis’s art has still to receive adequate attention from art historians, critics, and curators. For while many of his works have been published and exhibited since the 1980s, you will be hard pressed to find anything that can be described as a considered reflection on his art. The absence of a critical analysis of Davis’ art is partly due to his tendency to situate his practice as part of broader networks, as well as because of his decision to pursue employment from ngos, mostly as an educator, rather than to work full-time as an artist. Aged seventy-eight, and active since his late introduction to art making in 1977, Davis has held only one solo exhibition, and used it to feature recent work.
    [Show full text]
  • From Mandela's Prison Songs and Dances to Public Policy
    55 SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE Music and Dance Make Me Feel Alive: From Mandela's Prison Songs and Dances to Public Policy Johann S. Buis, DA, MM* Abstract reconciliation as public policy. The Truth How is it possible for song and dance to exist and Reconciliation Commission’s unprece- in political incarceration and manifest itself dented breaking of social and jurisprudential later as public policy responding to apartheid boundaries, the claim of agency for both atrocities? Examining the body of songs, oral victims and perpetrators, and public policy history accounts, and eye-witness reports of South Africa’s first democratically elected provided by fellow-prisoners of Mandela on black president, lie deeply embedded in Robben Island prison, I uncover a psycholo- cultural practices he testified to in his gical environment mediated through music autobiography, “The Long Walk to Free- and dance - within the confines of a political dom”. These cultural practices in prison prison. This source of prison music-making were singing and dancing. by political prisoners in detention, provide us This paper complements the music-as- with the artistic expressions of revolutionary torture trope: here music in detention carries songs, parody songs, praise songs, laments, ontological agency. Musical evidence of etc. These music genres reflect ontologies stylistic features, text, and contextual embedded in Mandela’s juristic imagination. analyses, and related literary criticism My framework for explaining these devices, expose Mandela’s embedded ontologies is a theoretical framework I call an internal and external ontological cultural aesthetic of function: internal ontologies that practices. Here, song and dance have agency speak to the African cultural ground against to influence public policy despite the which external ontologies are expressed in the constraints of political detention.
    [Show full text]
  • DISTRICT SIX MUSEUM Annual Report 2016/17 Table of Contents
    DISTRICT SIX MUSEUM Annual Report 2016/17 Table of Contents Content Pg 1. From the Chairperson 3 2. Director’s Overview 4 3. Education Department 8 4. Exhibitions Department 12 5. Collections, Research and Documentation Department 16 6. Seven Steps Membership Club 19 7. Friends of the Museum 20 8. Make a Donation 20 9. Auditors’ Report 21 10. Statement of Comprehensive Income 22 11. Statement of Financial Position 23 12. Funders, Staff, Board of Trustees, Honorary Members, 24 Patrons, Volunteers and Storytellers 13. Visitor numbers 24 District Six Museum District Six Museum Homecoming Centre To support the declaration of District 25A Buitenkant Street 15A Buitenkant Street Six as a National Heritage Site visit Cape Town, 8001 Cape Town, 8001 change.org and search for District Six Museum. P.O. Box 10178 [email protected] Caledon Square www.districtsix.co.za Cover photograph: Jac De Villiers 7905 Blog: https://d6whatson.wordpress.com Design and Layout: Graeme Arendse ([email protected] / 0825370827) Tel: 021 466 7200 District Six Museum Fax: 021 466 7210 @District6Museum ©District Six Museum 2013 DISTRICT SIX MUSEUM ANNUAL REPORT 2016/17 April May June 7th - Supper Club with Mervyn Africa 27th - Ibrahim Khalil Shuhaib 16th - Youth Day. ‘Tell Your Story 19th - Seven Steps drama Quartet to Born Free’ and IHOM ‘God has and storytelling workshops many names’ exhibition launch 28th - Workshop with Chapel Street area youth 30th - Huis Kombuis Koe’siester tea, 23rd - ‘Tell Your Story to Born Free’ Albert Suidoosterfees 30th - Supper Club with Lionel Davis 2016 Johanneson Comic Book education programme. Interview with Quinton Fortune’s Parents From the Chairperson Judge Siraj Desai IT IS A PRIVILEGE to SUCCEED CIRAJ RASSOOL and his many illustrious predecessors as chair of this board.
    [Show full text]
  • Cape Town 2021 Touring
    CAPE TOWN 2021 TOURING Go Your Way Touring 2 Pre-Booked Private Touring Peninsula Tour 3 Peninsula Tour with Sea Kayaking 13 Winelands Tour 4 Cape Canopy Tour 13 Hiking Table Mountain Park 14 Suggested Touring (Flexi) Connoisseur's Winelands 15 City, Table Mountain & Kirstenbosch 5 Cycling in the Winelands & visit to Franschhoek 15 Cultural Tour - Robben Island & Kayalicha Township 6 Fynbos Trail Tour 16 Jewish Cultural & Table Mountain 7 Robben Island Tour 16 Constantia Winelands 7 Cape Malay Cultural Cooking Experience 17 Grand Slam Peninsula & Winelands 8 “Cape Town Eats” City Walking Tour 17 West Coast Tour 8 Cultural Exploration with Uthando 18 Hermanus Tour 9 Cape Grace Art & Antique Tour 18 Shopping & Markets 9 Group Scheduled Tours Whale Watching & Shark Diving Tours Group Peninsula Tour 19 Dyer Island 'Big 5' Boat Ride incl. Whale Watching 10 Group Winelands Tour 19 Gansbaai Shark Diving Tour 11 Group City Tour 19 False Bay Shark Eco Charter 12 Touring with Families Family Peninsula Tour 20 Family Fun with Animals 20 Featured Specialist Guides 21 Cape Town Touring Trip Reports 24 1 GO YOUR WAY – FULL DAY OR HALF DAY We recommend our “Go Your Way” touring with a private guide and vehicle and then customizing your day using the suggested tour ideas. Cape Town is one of Africa’s most beautiful cities! Explore all that it offers with your own personalized adventure with amazing value that allows a day of touring to be more flexible. RATES FOR FULL DAY or HALF DAY– GO YOUR WAY Enjoy the use of a vehicle and guide either for a half day or a full day to take you where and when you want to go.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Heritage Regeneration of District Six: a Creative Tourism Approach
    CULTURAL HERITAGE REGENERATION OF DISTRICT SIX: A CREATIVE TOURISM APPROACH by SIRHAN JESSA Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Tourism and Hospitality Management in the Faculty of Business and Management Sciences at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology Supervisor: Professor J N Steyn Co-supervisor: Professor J P Spencer Cape Town March 2015 CPUT copyright information The dissertation/thesis may not be published either in part (in scholarly, scientific or technical journals), or as a whole (as a monograph), unless permission has been obtained from the University. DECLARATION I, the undersigned, hereby declare that this dissertation is my own work, that all sources used and quoted have been cited and acknowledged by means of complete references and that this dissertation was not previously submitted to any other university or university of technology for degree purposes. _________________________ _________________________ Sirhan Jessa Date: 1 March 2015 i CONFIRMATION OF PROOFREADING 8 Briar Close Silverglade Fish Hoek 7975 [email protected] 24.04.2014 To whom it may concern: I have proofread and edited the thesis: Cultural heritage regeneration in District Six: A creative tourism approach by Sirhan Jessa, a dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technologiae (Travel and Events Management) in the Faculty of Business at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Suggested corrections and/or alterations have been affected. Rolfe Proske ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS All praise be to God. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors Professors J.N. Steyn and J.P. Spencer for their guidance, support and encouragement during the course of this research project.
    [Show full text]
  • Between Colour Lines: Interrogating the Category 'Coloured' in Depictions Of
    Between colour lines: Interrogating the category ‘coloured’ in depictions of District Six in the work of five South African artists Cameron Amelia Cupido Dissertation in fulfilment of Master’s in Visual Studies Visual Arts Department Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Prof. Lize Van Robbroeck March 2018 1 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Declaration By submitting this dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. March 2018 Copyright © 2018 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Abstract The Group Areas Act of 1950 radically affected coloured artists of the time, since it resulted in forced removals and the demolition of traditionally ‘coloured’ suburbs, and forced coloured people into mono-cultural suburbs with imposed identities not of their own choosing. This thesis seeks to uncover the complexities and heterogeneity of coloured identity and the effects apartheid ideologies and practices had on the personal narratives and cultural praxis of Lionel Davis, Albert Adams, George Hallett, Gavin Jantjes and Peter Clarke, who all emphasized the significance of District Six in their own articulations of colouredness. I propose that this problematic ascribed identity was at the root of most artworks produced by these artists and that their art helped them deal with their experiences within (and about) the space of District Six during apartheid.
    [Show full text]
  • Jafta Masemola's Master
    Jafta Masemola’s Master Key Experimental Notes on Azanian Aesthetic Theory Athi Mongezeleli Joja Abstract: Jafta Kgalabi Masemola is the longest serving (1963–1989) anti-apartheid political prisoner in South Africa’s notorious Robben Island. Although Masemola is well known in the struggle narratives, not much has been written about him and his practices as a political organiser beyond biographical and anecdotal narratives. This article considers, with a certain degree of detail, an even more unthought aspect of Masemola’s life, his creative productions; in particular, the aesthetic logic that underwrites the master key that he cloned from a bar of soap while jailed in Robben Island. Looking from the vantage point of aes- thetic and critical discourse, the article attempts to open up new vistas and interests in Azanian cultural praxis. Keywords: black aesthetics, Azania, Jafta Masemola, master key, Rob- ben Island, smuggling Towards the end of apartheid, many art practitioners, scholars, and activists were preoccupied with variations of the question, ‘what defines South African expressions?’ From participants in the his- toric 1987 Amsterdam conference, Culture in Another South Africa (1989) to the 1990 Zabalaza Festival in London (1993) to the early 1990s controversial remarks on culture made by constitutional judge Albie Sachs, this question persists. In fact, it was particularly Sachs’s paper, which was first presented in Stockholm, 1989, in an in-house African National Congress (ANC) meeting, and then in a seminar in Lusaka where it gained more attention, that fur- ther emboldened the preparations on the new national culture as an Theoria, Issue 168, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • GOING and COMING BACK Photographs of 1950S Cape Town
    GOING AND COMING BACK Photographs of 1950s Cape Town by Bryan Heseltine, curated by Darren Newbury We wish to thank the following individuals and organisations, without whose support this exhibition and the research upon which it is based would not have been possible: Jennifer Heseltine and Gail Thorpe; DISTRICT SIX MUSEUM Birmingham City University, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and University of Brighton. PUBLIC EDUCATION PROGRAMME 24th September – 30th November 2013 Heritage Day Preview Panel Discussion Reconnecting Photographic Histories Exhibition Encounter #1: in South Africa ‘walk through’ with the curator, Darren Newbury Thursday, 3rd October Tuesday, 24th September 2013: Heritage Day Time: 6pm – 8pm Time: 2.30pm Venue: District Six Museum Homecoming Centre, Venue: District Six Museum Homecoming Centre, 1st Floor Gallery 1st Floor Gallery Going and Coming Back: Photographs of 1950s Cape Contact Zahra Hendricks for more information at Town presents a selection of photographs made by the pho- [email protected] or telephone 021 4667200 tographer Bryan Heseltine during the early 1950s in sever- al areas of the city, each of which occupies a unique place in its history: the Bo-Kaap, District Six, Langa, Nyanga and Windermere. This exhibition will be the first occasion Exhibition Opening that these photographs have been shown in South Africa since 1952, when they departed for England, along with Tuesday, 24th September 2013: Heritage Day the photographer. In bringing this body of work back to Time: 6pm South
    [Show full text]
  • The Loomis Chaffee World Bulletin
    Fall/Winter 2015-16 European Migrant Crisis The The End of Ebola? Loomis Chaffee Pope Francis Visits America Iran Nuclear Deal World Bulletin Korean Family Reunions Bringing the World to the Island ISIS Destroys History Illustration by Dani Hove ’16 From the Desk of the Editor-in-Chief Get Off the Island, Explore the World This issue of the World Bulletin arrives at the beginning of an undetermined 2016 and the end of an eventful 2015. After the successful climate talks in Paris, the world can start reducing its carbon emission and a post on Facebook. No matter the form, the more further preserve we take interest in international news, the quicker the environment; we can become informed citizens who will shape our however, in the midst of ever-changing societies. joy and promise, there were also tragedies that will continue to impact and change our societies. In the Sincerely, United States, the San Bernardino attack Claudia Lamprecht ’16 adds to the debate over gun control and its enforcement and while the Paris shootings were an attack in France, its consequences impact countries across the world. Such injustices will not be forgotten, will improve national security measures, and will enforce dedication to fight terrorists who threaten our homes, work places, cafes, and music venues. Though no one can predict nor single-handedly control the future, we all play a role in shaping it. At the beginning of a new year, we can set resolutions, try a new style, and step out of our comfort zones. With a variety of websites, blogs, and other news sources, we can influence our future by the choices we make, presidential candidate we vote for, or the international causes we support.
    [Show full text]