Plastic Histories Public art project by Cigdem Aydemir

14 July – 1 August 2014 | Bloemfontein, South Africa 1 14 July – 1 August 2014 | Bloemfontein, South Africa

Plastic Histories by Cigdem Aydemir is the first experimental art commission for the Vryfees (Vryfestival) in Bloemfontein, South Africa, as a partner in the Australian based SITUATE Art in Festivals initiative, managed by Salamanca Art Centre. This new experimental art commission is part of the Programme for Innovation in Artform Development (PIAD), developed by the Vryfees and the University of the Free State, to support long-term interdisciplinary research, cross-cultural engagement and development for the arts.

2 3 Contents

Introduction 7

Framework 8

Waiting to exhale | Jonathan J Jansen 12

Poem: Vakuumverpak vir makismum varsheid | Gisela Ullyatt 14

Poem: Ndizalwa nobani | Kagisho Kolwane 20

Plastic knowledge, memory and history | André Keet 24

President Steyn’s pigeon: Making the opaque shine | Lis Lange 29

Poem: Bomme nkhekhe | Charmaine Mrwebi 34

Poem: Mmakgosi wa Afrika | Tessa Ndlovu 36

Plastic histories: Queering the historical South African gaze | Nadine Lake 41

Credits 46

4 5 Introduction

Most 19th Century, and even contemporary monuments in post-colonial countries such as South Africa are typically a celebration of men’s achievements in serving the empires or their nations. These monuments serve to shape collective memory in public spaces, and ensure against the failure of individual memory. Yet, we now know that our memory, far from being set in stone (or bronze), is plastic in the sense that it is constantly shaped and molded based on our new knowledge of the past. We also know that there are multiple histories in every era, and that often these alternative histories are not represented in public space. Plastic Histories is an attempt to visualize this by uncovering alternative histories, in particular acknowledging the contribution of women from all races, sexualities and genders in the grand narrative of a post-Apartheid South Africa. Cigdem Aydemir, 2014

Plastic Histories by Cigdem Aydemir is an exploration into the nature and meaning of historical monuments in public space. By physically and virtually shrink-wrapping monuments of historical male figures in pink plastic, Aydemir opens up a dialogue around the representation of histories in public space and the narratives that are held around them. While she alludes to the significance and preservation of public monuments, she concurrently reveals the nature of their sometimes contentious and gendered historical function.

Plastic Histories creates a, somewhat, temporary utopia where these monuments can be used to empower and commemorate the unacknowledged and equally deserving, rather than those simply in power. Still, the process of highlighting alternative histories does not eliminate the historical context or value of the statues or indeed the legacy of the men they represent. In fact they serve to highlight the narratives of these men and the historical moments they embody. In a time when the general public is rarely aware of their stories, Plastic Histories offers an opportunity to consider and debate the purpose of these statues, and add the additional histories of women from all races, sexualities and genders to these sites of collective memory.

Cigdem Aydemir is a Sydney based artist of Turkish Muslim heritage. Her interdisciplinary art practice incorporates installation, performance and video. She explores the convergence of gender, queer, religious, and cultural identities as well as themes of body politics and intersectionality. Much of her work interrogates the void between body and dress as well as its social and political implications. Coming from a fashion design background and being the daughter of a tailor, her conspicuous use of fabric simultaneously holds, falls, conceals and reveals, adorns and obfuscates. Plastic Histories: Steyn (2014), Monument shrink-wrapped in plastic with neon pink enamel 6 7 Plastic Histories: Swart (2014), Monument shrink-wrapped in plastic with neon pink enamel

Framework

Plastic Histories is a multifaceted project comprising of three main components. This includes the physical shrink- wrapping of two monuments on the University of the Free State (UFS) main campus; the development of an augmented reality application for four monuments in the city of Bloemfontein; and an exhibition of digital prints, video and physically shrink-wrapped busts from the UFS permanent art collection, in the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery.

The statues of President Martinus Theunis Steyn, sixth State President of the Orange Free State (artist Anton van Wouw, 1929), and President Charles Robberts Swart, first State President of South Africa (artist Johann Moolman, 1994), are temporarily shrink-wrapped in pink plastic. This is accompanied by an augmented reality component, designed in partnership with artist Warren Armstrong, for the statues of General James Barry Munnik Hertzog, third Prime Minister of South Africa (artist Danie de Jager, 1967), President Francis William Reitz, fifth State President of the Orange Free State (artist Laura Rautenbach, 1986), President Johannes Henricus Brand, fourth state president of the Orange Free State (artist JW Best Jr., 1893), and General Christiaan Rudolf de Wet, Acting State President of the Orange Free State (artist Coert Steynberg, 1954). A free, downloadable application allows these monuments to appear pink when viewed through a smart phone or tablet. In addition the voices of South African poets Kagisho Kolwane (Xhosa), Charmaine Mrwebi (Sotho), Tessa Ndlovu (Afrikaans, English, Sotho) and Gisela Ullyatt (Afrikaans) are heard when viewing the application.

The three components are integrated into a larger social media environment to create a visible space for alternative histories in public. This includes livestreaming of the shrink-wrapped President Steyn statue for the duration of the project, and a #PinkPresidents campaign to support women’s and queer rights.

8 9 Plastic Histories: Swart (detail)

Plastic Histories: Steyn (reflection from UFS Main Building) Plastic Histories: Steyn (detail) 10 11 Waiting to exhale

There is something beautifully subversive in any creative project that takes on the somber and the sacred in social spaces. Such is discordant memory from a period of white supremacy and its attendant ills. Plastic can and does change shape and colour (sic) under the case with the decision of Cigdem Aydemir to vacuum pack two foundational figures in Afrikaner history, President MT Steyn and the hands of real human beings. Here is the case for agency and activism; history is not simply given, it is made and re-made by all of President CR Swart, whose statues feature prominently on the Bloemfontein campus of the University of the Free State. us in formal settings like schools and universities but also in everyday life by what we talk about, remember and construct alongside, or in the place of, others’ sacred statues. “They can’t breathe!” whispered a colleague known for her playful melodrama; I made the obvious biological point—“they’re stone.” And yet her point is well-made. Enveloping these historical statues in tightly concealed plastic covers does convey a sense of asphyxiation, I am delighted that the two statues continue to exist on our campus; there is something mindless and mean in displacement alone. taking away the breath of social and historical life accorded these historical icons. But what do they breathe? What are the expressions Keeping some statues is one way of recognizing the sacred memories of others. However, if that is the only purpose for retention, of lives once lived, and yet still lived, that Steyn and Swart exhale? then the act of retention itself is a blow to social justice. The statues, however, also allow for ironic memory, the idea that despite our supremacist history these statues are surrounded by, and given new life through, the many changes happening around them, and to Theirs is of course a message of Afrikaner nationalism from its infancy following the South African War (once known as the Anglo-Boer them. All around Steyn and Swart new memorials are being created daily in symbolism and in substance, and hopefully in dialogic War) and its growing confidence that resulted in the narrow electoral victory of the Nationalist Party in 1948. It is white breath, for black conversation; that, after all, is what universities should do. South Africans were increasingly marginalized and oppressed under their respective regimes. But there is more than one story even as one should guard against moral equivalence of the anti-British struggle of the Afrikaners and the pro-apartheid oppression of the Finally, these sacred bodies are available for purposes of playful engagement, through this highly creative act of the Plastic Histories same people. President Steyn was a peacemaker, a person who sought, unsuccessfully, reconciliation between Kitchener and Kruger. project, to give new meaning, even transform, solid stones into new life especially for those long waiting to exhale. Swart has little to commend him apart from the fact that he was the first law graduate from the UFS. Yet for some people in the country Jonathan D Jansen these two men, and what they represent, breathe life into the hearts and minds of those who draw on nostalgia for making sense of an unhappy present.

In that sense, these are living stones and when you touch them, expect reaction, as in the case of one blogger who wanted the Australian artist to rather go back to her country and mess with the aborigines; this of course has long been the standard trope among white South Professor Jonathan Jansen is Vice Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State and President of the South African Institute of Race Relations. Africans to foreigners (in the case of Americans, it is “the Indians” who should enjoy reflection) when there is any charge of racism. He holds a PhD from Stanford University, the MS degree from Cornell University, and honorary doctorates of education from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), Cleveland State University (USA), and the University of Vermont (USA, 2014). He is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association Painting the white envelope around the statues pink of course creates other dilemmas for South Africa’s masculine sensibilities, not and a Fellow of the Academy of Science of the Developing World. His book Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race and the Apartheid Past (Stanford dissimilar to the disgust expressed when the Blue Bulls rugby team (my team, in fact) at one stage wore pink outfits to demonstrate 2009) was listed as one of the best books of that year by the American Libraries Association. His new book, Schools that Work, uses video-documentaries their support for fighting cancer. For real men, however, pink suggests softness, even gayety, with all the kinds of homophobic reaction to capture what happens inside disadvantaged schools which nevertheless produce the best results in physical science and mathematics in South Africa. the colour evokes. He also writes popular books like Great South African Teachers (with two students), We need to talk, and We need to act (2013); and is a columnist for The Which brings me to the power of plasticities as a construct, the very idea that what is sacred knowledge in one era bends in the direction Times and Die Burger. In 2013 he was awarded the Education Africa Lifetime Achiever Award in New York and the Spendlove Award from the University of of truth in another era. Tall and firm as these statues might stand, they enjoy little regard on campus today among the majority of California for his contributions to tolerance, democracy and human rights. In May 2014 he received an honorary doctor of letters degree at the University students and a growing number of staff. Not only because of the problem of distant memory but also because of the problem of of Vermont.

12 13 Vakuumverpak vir maksimum varsheid Vacuum packed for maximum freshness Gisela Ullyatt Translated by Gisela & Tony Ullyatt

sou jy ooit kon raai could you have ever imagined meneer die president mister president dat ’n vrou jou grond that a woman could tread só onheilig kon betree so profanely on your ground hier, op jou rooipleinsuidblokuniversiteit here, on your redsquaresouthblockuniversity voor jou hoofgebou in front of your main building

sou jy ooit kon dink could you have ever thought dat ek that I ook ’n boorling van die Oranje Boererepubliek also a native of the Orange Boer Republic sonder kappie die Vrystaatson could occupy the Free State sun kon beset sonder borstrok without a bonnet without stays of gehekelde handskoentjies van kant or crocheted gloves of lace dat jou Vrystaat-republiek that your Free State Republic’s se oranje verskif het orange has faded tot Manguang metro-kleure to Mangaung metro colours

meneer die boerepresident mister boer president jy is ’n gyselaar van tyd en plek you are a hostage of time and place jou plot is dun jou karakters plat your plot is thin your characters flat soos die vlaktes rondom Bloemfontein like the plains around Bloemfontein

sou jy ooit kon droom, could you have ever dreamt president van hierdie verlore Boererepubliek president of this lost Boer Republic dat ’n vrou jou laaste suurstof sou kom roof that a woman could rob you of your last oxygen want jy het ’n lugleegte van pienk geword because you have become a vacuum of pink dalk selfs ’n bietjie queer perhaps a little queer dalk gril jy so effens in hierdie wurgplastiek perhaps you wince slightly in this strangulating plastic hierdie ademlose raklewe, kunsmatig verleng this oppressive shelf life artificially lengthened soos rou vleis like raw meat

en ek dink aan daardie vrou, gekappie in haar taal and I think of that woman bonneted in her language voor die vrouemonument in front of the women’s memorial ingewig in sandsteen tot in aller ewigheid wedged in sandstone for all eternity

waar tarentale in wintergrasse roep where guineafowl call in the winter grass

sou sy haar verwonder oor daardie mystic boer would she marvel at that mystic boer verseël sealed up en afgeseël in pienk and sealed off in pink Plastic Histories: Steyn overlooking the city of Bloemfontein vakuumverpak vir maksimum varsheid vacuum packed for maximum freshness soos ’n joko teesakkie like a joko teabag

sou sy droom would she dream oor haar eie kappielose dae of her own bonnet-free days

14 15 Plastic Histories: Hertzog II (2014), Digitally manipulated photograph Plastic Histories: Brand III (2014), Digitally manipulated photograph

Plastic Histories: Reitz III (2014), Digitally manipulated photograph Plastic Histories: Brand II (2014), Digitally manipulated photograph Plastic Histories: Agterryer (2014), Digitally manipulated photograph Plastic Histories: De Wet II (2014), Digitally manipulated photograph

16 17 Plastic Histories: Reitz I (2014), Digitally manipulated photograph Plastic Histories: Reitz II (2014), Digitally manipulated photograph

18 19 Ndizalwa nobani Who begot me Kagisho Kolwane Kagisho Kolwane

Mhize, Mkhabela, Maphobola, Mpondom’se, Nguni, Mhlubi Mhize, Mkhabela, Maphobola, Mpondom’se, Nguni, Mhlubi u mnyama u mhlophe white or black kum’kuya fana to me is the same ulwimi luya gagaza luya xaxaza, the tongue clicks ‘xaxa and gaga’ umhlabauya jikeleza the world goes around and around kum kuya fana to me is the same ngi dinga inguquko e bomini bam’ I need change in my life. ndi yona intombi e ngena so isiqalo ndi be yena u mama o ngena so sphelo I need change in my life i ngi a landele amandlozi am’ who begot me I am a girl with no beginning akwa qaqisanga ukuthi ndi ya emva noma phambili I am a woman with no ending ikamva lam a iliya luluma I know not my ancestor ngo dinga ingoqoko ebomini bam’ I follow not my culture ndi umtwana o zwalwe ku rainbow nation its not clear whether I go back or forth ndiumtwana o multiracial. my future has no certainty

ilizwe lonke umdeni wam who begot me ubuntu bam bose luntwini I am a child born in a rainbow nation ndi zalana ne lizwe lonke I am a multi-racial child izinyanya zam zise Thabazimbi nase Bahamas the whole nation is my family ndi goqokile e bomini bam’ my humanity is in all human ngoba ndizalwa ngi manzi jikelela my ancestors are both in Thabazimbi and Bahamas I am related to the whole nation I have changed in my life for I am begotten by the whole of South Africa

Plastic Histories: Augmented reality, Process: Stage 1, 3D mapping, 123D Catch

20 21 Plastic Histories: Augmented reality, Process: Stage 3, integration system, Junaio application Plastic Histories: Augmented reality, Process: Stage 2, recognition testing, Metaio Toolbox Plastic Histories: Augmented reality, Final application

22 23 Plastic knowledge, memory and history

To look with the past through our memorialising, commemorative and historical artefacts is, in essence, an act of transformation; During, L. 2000. The future of Hegel: Plasticity, temporality, dialectic.Hypatia , 15: 196–220. a plastic move. Not so much transforming the actual events of the past; but transforming the observer, the enquirer, the space of Malabou, C. 2005. The future of Hegel. Plasticity, temporality and dialectic. Abingdon: Routledge. engagement, the present. Our historical statutes, celebrating a history of ‘racism’, ‘sexism’ and all other kinds of violence, require such transformative observations: importing them into the present because of their innate plasticity; and thus, as teachers of ‘justice’. Malabou, C. 2010. Plasticity at the dusk of writing. New York: Columbia University Press.

Our cultural tendencies to import these artefacts as hermetic, sealed-off representations of a past go against the plasticity of our Williams, T. 2013. Plasticity, in retrospect: Changing the future of the humanities. Diacritics. 41(1) p. 6-25. own make-up. We act against our own plastic nature to become ‘preservationists’ and ‘bigots’ of note. This acting against our innate intuition is the refusal to revisit a past which may unsettle our present; or disturb our privileges and moral economies. It is a rejection of the call of ‘transformation’; and thus a rejection, in the most intimate way, of the self.

Now, for the first time here in our collective spaces, the public art project, Plastic Histories by Cigdem Aydemir combines the plasticity

of history with the plasticities of its observers and interlocutors. It challenges the ways in which we have wrapped away our own

plasticity. Through this project our own changeability is made vivid and inescapable from ourselves. Our moral responsibility towards

everyday transformation in the direction of ‘justice’ is formulated within this plastic art.

“[P]lasticity indicates malleability, suppleness, and being ‘susceptible to changes of form’” (Williams, 2013: 8). Malabou’s work (2005) re-introduces Hegel’s notion of plasticity and dialectic. Plasticity means “a capacity to receive form and a capacity to produce form” (Malabou, 2005: 9). Plasticity also refers to a philosophical attitude that Hegel described as a “sense of receptivity and understanding on the part of the listener [or the observer]” (ibid: 10) which Malabou (ibid) paraphrased as the reader and interlocutor being “receptive to the form, but they in their turn are lead to construct and form what they hear and read”. She interprets Hegel’s dialectic as a process of plasticity, “a movement where formation and dissolution, novelty and anticipation, are in continual interplay” (During on Malabou, 2000: 191). Hegel’s dialectic does not lead, as generally interpreted, to a closure, but to a future that is open (ibid: 192). The dialectic is regenerated as a forward movement because of its ‘plasticity’ Professor André Keet qualified as a teacher from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa where he completed his Masters Degree in Education (Cum Laude) in 1995. He also completed certificate courses in human rights in Uganda and Denmark in 1997 and 1998. A PhD degree from the University The conceptualization of Aydemir’s project rests on the open dialectic of which Hegel speaks; its plasticity. It has clear counterparts in of Pretoria was conferred on him in April 2007. Keet joined the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in 1996 and became its Deputy Chief social reality; it is not simply ‘theoretical’. Rather, it speaks to pre-theoretical dispositions of human beings. We can thus argue that the Executive Officer in 2005. In 2008 he was appointed by the President to serve as a Commissioner on the Commission for Gender Equality. He joined the very knowledge that we carry and engage with is plastic, so are our memory and history. Aydemir’s project invites us to engage a plastic University of Fort Hare as the Director: Transdisciplinary Programme in 2008. Since July 2011, Keet has been based at the University of the Free State as history as plastic observers by which we can activate the justice-oriented transformability within all of us. the Director of the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice. He serves on various structures in the higher education and human rights sectors and was André Keet appointed in January 2013 to serve on the Ministerial Oversight Committee on the Transformation of Higher Education in South Africa.

24 25 Plastic Histories: Steyn (detail)

26 27 Plastic Histories: Steyn (detail)

President Steyn’s pigeon: Making the opaque shine

Presiding over the Red Square in the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) there is a statue of Marthinus Theunis Steyn (1858-1916), South African lawyer, politician, statesman, and sixth and last president of the independent Orange Free State from 1896 to 1902. President Steyn is in a prime spot on campus. He overlooks the city from a slight elevation, with his back to the UFS’s main building where the Rector and top management of the university have their offices. Custodian and sentry of the past and the future? Whose past and whose future?

On any given day, hundreds of people walk pass this statue; the majority of these people are students. I often wonder what students think about President Steyn’s statue, whether they know who he was, why he is there. I also wonder whether on any day students, or anybody for that matter, actually see Steyn.

Every morning a solitary pigeon lands on Steyn’s head and rests there as the sun gets warmer. Every morning Steyn’s pigeon makes me smile. Is the pigeon a metaphor for liberated black people? Is it a metaphor for the cynicism of British colonialism? Is it a teaser on maleness? Is the pigeon a sign of nature or god having a sense of humour? Any or none; what matters is that Steyn’s pigeon makes me see the statue.

The public art project by Cigdem Aydemir takes Steyn out of the anonymity of posterity. By making Steyn pink, Aydemir not only makes him irreverently visible; she also tries to make visible the ghosts of the unknown and unacknowledged others whose stories are not reflected in colonial monuments. Aydemir’s augmented reality through pink will have, for a couple of weeks, the same role as Steyn’s pigeon: it makes us see.

What is there to be seen on the Bloemfontein Campus and in the city? That there are no statues celebrating black people for themselves (not for their contribution to the Boer War). Where is the statue to the domestic worker, to the farm labourer, to the mine worker, to the Indian trader? Where in the public art of our cities is the acknowledgement that we find it difficult to write, to tell, to represent history in its complex and contradictory layers?

In this sense, public art turning its gaze to historic monuments in public spaces provides us with an important opportunity, as Aydemir suggests, to activate the space, and to think. Responding to this invitation I would like to reflect on two related themes: the human condition between past and future and how do we deal with memory?

In her essay ‘The gap between past and future’, the German political thinker Hannah Arendt (1906-1976), uses Kafka’s short parable, HE, to reflect on the particular position of human beings in relation to time. In Kafka’s story HE has two antagonists. One presses him from behind:

from the origin. The other blocks the road ahead. HE fights with both. To be sure, the first supports him in his fight with the second, for he wants to push him forward, and in the same way the second supports him in his fight with the first, since he

28 29 drives him back. But it is only theoretically so. For it is not only the two antagonists who are there, but he himself as well, to make it, if not transparent, at least not opaque. Social memory is after all history, i.e. a purposeful selection of stories that different and who really knows his intentions? (Kafta cited in Arendt, 2006: 7) groups of people decided to keep and remember and retell. To think in the face of historical memory would mean to counterpoise Steyn and Milner, and Milner and Steyn and Kruger, to the anonymous white people and the invisible black people. To think means to be able Much philosophical and historiographic theorisation has gone into defining the relationship of human beings to time and in particular to to put oneself in the shoes of the other, not necessarily to forgive but to understand. understand the position of human beings in relation to the present. Is the present more than the in-between moment, the gap, between past and future? And if the present is a gap, what is the historical, existential and political meaning of now? Just as important, how does I like President Steyn’s pigeon because it reconciles me with Steyn’s presence at the UFS in 2014. Yet something more purposeful and the gap stand in relation to past and future? The preferred uncomplicated image is that of the past, the origin, pushing humanity back more thoughtful can be done for the public space of the UFS, and for public spaces more generally, to be truly agoric and to encourage while the future pulls it forward. Arendt has a much more interesting interpretation of the gap between past and future as she reads it public debate. One possible approach is to decide that President Steyn needs company: the company could be the inclusion of another in Kafka. statue, for both of them to constitute a South African version of the Janus gate in the Roman Empire. Yet, this approach might be just as incomplete and unsatisfactory as Steyn’s lonely presence on the square, and if that were the case, we would need another resident In Arendt’s reading of Kafka both past and future are forces but the past does not pull back but presses forward and it is the future which pigeon to ensure that we keep on seeing these monuments. However, ‘company’ can also be generated by the manner in which drives us back into the past (2006: 10). Thus human existence is the historical circumstance which interrupts what otherwise would be President Steyn and his colleague monuments are presented and represented to the public. Then the public space becomes an archive an endless continuum. Two elements interest me in Arendt’s thinking in this regard. First what does it mean that the past, the origin, that can be read and that is being interpreted in dialogue. The narrative of our history can become complex and nuanced and therefore presses forward? Secondly, what is the role of human beings between past and future? allow us as a society to start seeing each other. The reading of the past as pressing forward evokes the notion of building on permanence, the notion of continuity, of (un)change. This Art and public art in particular has a fundamental political and philosophical role to play in helping us to acknowledge our condition is one type of historic political narrative that sees the world not just in relation to the past but as its necessary continuity. This is an between past and present and our need to make sense of ourselves and our world. interpretation of the world in which history and tradition are not threads that link societies back to their conflictive and contradictory origins but an interpretation of the world that needs no tradition (linking back) because the world is actively in the origin. In this sense, Lis Lange the past presses human beings forward as they are. The counterpart of this is a future that instead of pulling forward presses back. Is Arendt, H. 2006. Between past and future. New York: Penguin this a matter of anguish in the face of the unknown future or a conservative metaphor that suggests, once again, sameness and (un) change? Yet there is another, much more Arendtian, understanding of the parable of HE. In this reading the play of forces constitutes the field within which human beings think and make sense of the world. It is precisely human thinking, the search for understanding of the present or rather the gap between past and future, which makes life not only possible but livable. This thinking happens historically with Dr Lis Lange is currently Acting Vice-Rector: Academic at the University of the Free State where she holds a substantive position as Senior Director the past pushing us forward and the future pushing back to look for the past in the endless ‘movement’ of reflection. heading the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning. Before this, she was the Executive Director (2006-2010) of the Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council of Higher Education (CHE), and Acting CEO of the same organisation between August 2007 and April 2008. She has been Monuments, and more generally art in the public space, provide, in some respects like the space of forces that HE inhabits, opportunities involved in the development and implementation of science and technology and higher education policy in South Africa for a decade and a half, working to think. The fact that, more often than not, we do not see monuments, speaks as much of the routinisation of our lives as it speaks to in different capacities in the Human Sciences Research Council, the National Research Foundation and the Council on Higher Education. Dr Lange has the anaesthetic value of objects that, whether from the past or from the future, do not speak to the passerby or the bystander. Is it that served as a member of the board of the International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and has participated in several President Steyn and his fellow monuments do not speak to the majority because they are the history of others? Or it is that President international initiatives on quality assurance. She is the editor of an academic journal focused on the humanities, Acta Academica. She has undertaken Steyn et al do not speak to the majority because we are still to understand how to make them speak properly? research and published in the fields of history, higher education and quality assurance. Her major concern in both research and practice is the role of higher Making Steyn speak is part of the process of creating and discovering memory. Unlike memory of personal, sensorial experiences, education in the development of democratic societies based on social justice. Dr Lange studied in Argentina, Mexico and South Africa, where she obtained historical memory is not spontaneous, it has to be developed. In this sense memory can be ideological if it is provided without a logbook a PhD in South African history from the University of the Witwatersrand. 30 31 Plastic Histories: Busts (installation) (2014), Busts shrink-wrapped in plastic with neon pink enamel Plastic Histories: Busts (installation) (2014), Busts shrink-wrapped in plastic with neon pink enamel

Plastic Histories: Busts (video component) (2014), Video loop

32 33 Bomme nkhekhe Women the gurus Charmaine Mrwebi Translated by Kesa Molotsane

bomme nkhekhe, bana ba letsopa la Afrika women the gurus, children of the African soil batsitsinya matheka, ba ikotla difuba shaking their waists, priding themselves banyenya ba sa qete talking endlessly ba qoqa ebile ba qwakisetsana le bonkhekhehadi they hold conversations and even debating against disalonung, merapelong, di societing the greater gurus ba shwaswatha at the salons, prayer meetings, stokvels modumo ele o motonahadi, they talk a lot e ka ba ka tloha ba kgorohelana great is their sound as if they would gobble at each other bomme nkhekhe mosadi popelo women the gurus o bohale, o tibile woman, strict is her womb o ikokobeditse she is deep, she is humble pelo ya hae e metsi her heart is as flowing as water o nesa pula ho tswa ka ntle she makes it rain from the outside ho ya hare botebong to the inside, deep down keledi tse rothang marameng a hae tears running down her chicks dibonthsa senatla se mameletseng tumelong show her great might of perseverance in faith se batla bohobe she looks for bread (food) se lwana ntwa she fights a fight (of survival)

bomme nkhekhe women the gurus batlhokomedi ba bo ngwaneno the care-takers of your siblings ba nka maemo a bona taking their positions dishweshwe tsa bina talkative ones began to sing mediyanyewe stepping on top of the Sotho-hats (medianyewe) ba e hataka ka maoto with their feet ho tla boemong ba emong, le emong putting themselves in other’s situations jwalo ka eo a tswetsweng tsweleng le le leng just as those who are fed from the same breast ba bua puo e tswejwang ke bone speaking a common language amongst themselves puo ya ho hodisa bana a language of raising children puo ya o tswara thipa ka bohaleng a language intervention setjhaba sa mmala o sebilo se phelo the black nations survive ke bonkhekhegadi due to these great gurus

Plastic Histories: Busts (installation) (2014), Busts shrink-wrapped in plastic with neon pink enamel

34 35 Mmakgosi wa Afrika misunderstood she is not made from dirt Queen of Africa misunderstood she is not made from dirt Tessa Ndlovu but from Adam’s rib Tessa Ndlovu but from Adam’s rib from Sarah to the Virgin Mary from Sarah to the Virgin Mary mmakgosi wa Afrika she is design for durable queen of Africa she is designed for durability o montle, o maatla she gives life to legends and prophets beautiful and powerful she gives life to legends and prophets o tsetswe mo Afrika born in Africa o godisitswe go tswa letseleng she understands that she is a legend raised from the breast of she understands that she is a legend la mme wa lefatsheng her words are legendary an African mother her words are legendary even when not relevant even when not relevant queen of Africa she is still necessary queen of Africa she is still necessary she is an intellectual she exist in and out of time she is an intellectual she exists in and out of time she compliments her generation yes…she is authentic she compliments her generation yes…she is authentic with her education with her education ke mosadi wa Afrika Kgosatsana ya Afrika woman of Africa princess of Africa

liberal and powerful she is who she is liberal and powerful she is who she is she embraces her beauty because all she composes she embraces her beauty because all she composes with or without a weave is forever compressed in time with or without a weave is forever compressed in time in a graceful fashion even though she will decompose in a graceful fashion even though she will decompose

with distinctive style she carries her children ‘n vrou is daai groen wat jy kry as jy te veel geel meng met blou with distinctive style she carries her children a woman is that kind of green that you get when you mix too on her voluptuous hips die skynsel van goud wat jy kry wanneer die son gaan woon in on her voluptuous hips much yellow with blue and balanced them on her womanly curves die duister and balances them on her womanly curves the appearance of gold when the sun recides in the darkness en wanneer dit weer opkom in die dagbreek voor dou and when it rises before daybreak with a smile that glows and a womb that leaps with a smile that glows and a womb that leaps sy is die oorgang van die derde en vierde dimensie van tyd she is the descent from the third to the fourth dimension of time it is not the way her hips move when she walks die liefde wat jy in jou binneste voel en jy weet hoe dit voel it is not the way her hips move when she walks she is the love that you feel in your innermost being and you know or the accent on her lips when she talks die een wat jy lief het or the accent on her lips when she talks what you feel she is the one that you love sy dans soos die Khoi-Khoi she is that kind of woman she dances like the Khoi-Khoi terwyl haar lyfie swaai soos die Boesman who feeds her children with one cup of maize while her body moves like the Bushman she is that kind of woman kyk tog mooi and still give God her praise please look carefully who feeds her children with one cup of maize sy kleef haar Here vas aan haar bors she keeps her Lord close to her chest and still gives God her praise en slat haar twee oë op na bo she is bad and keeps her eyes to the sky terwyl haar tong gly soos die Griekwa she is pure while her tongue slips like the Griqua she is bad sy is ‘n afstammeling van Saartjie Baartman powerful and courageous she is a descendent from Saartjie Baartman she is pure ‘n vrou gebore in Afrika Kgosatsana ya Afrika a woman born in Africa powerful and courageous princess of Africa

36 37 Livestreaming Plastic Histories: Steyn. UFS youtube channel

38 39 Plastic Histories: Swart in front of CR Swart Building

Plastic histories: Queering the historical South African gaze

One can safely say, at this point, that there is no single narrative of the nation. Different groups (genders, classes, ethnicities, generations and so on) do not experience the myriad national formations in the same way. Nations are invented, performed and consumed in ways that do not follow a universal blueprint (McClintock, A. 1995: 360).

Nationalism has become an increasingly contested notion since South Africa’s transition to democracy. It is also true that nationalism is a gendered concept that has been manipulated by and for the benefit of privileged men. In her book Imperial Leather, Anne McClintock makes insightful reference to the performative nature of nationalism and, more specifically, the performative spectacle, which ultimately developed into an Afrikaner nationalist identity. Afrikaner nationalism and its association with white, male supremacy ultimately resulted in an exclusionary system of racialised privilege. Furthermore, for McClintock nationalism is “constitutive of people’s identities through social contests that are frequently violent and always gendered” (1995: 353). These heteropatriarchal and racially exclusive performances resulted in a segregated society with citizenship rights reserved for a South African minority. 2014 marks the country’s 20th year of democracy and although significant strides have been made to address historical inequalities of racial and sexual privileging, the notion of citizenship remains a contentious issue today.

A city whose architecture and monuments embodies certain elements of this white hetereopatriarchal order is Bloemfontein. The city has a rich history pertaining to the South African War and the Women’s Monument, which honours the lives of women and children who suffered and died in concentration camps, is also situated here. It is important to note here that although women are memorialised at the Monument, they are symbolically portrayed as mothers of the nation. McClintock (2004: 105) explains: “[b]y portraying the Afrikaner nation symbolically as a weeping woman, the mighty male embarrassment of military defeat could be overlooked and the memory of women’s vital efforts during the war washed away in images of feminine tears and maternal loss.” When walking the city streets of Bloemfontein today it becomes clear that historical male monuments present a rupture with contemporary South African politics. This rupture urges us to grapple with the relevance of preserving a history, which is far removed from the everyday reality of the broader South African populace. It is in this context that I would like to discuss the 2014 public art project titled Plastic Histories and suggest that some of the questions posed by the artist Cigdem Aydemir may serve to productively queer normative histories. Plastic Histories is a public arts project that initiates awareness by means of shrink wrapping or presenting an augmented reality of 19th and 20th century male monuments. By presenting monuments that favour a history of white, male privilege through an alternative lens, in this case a pink one, the artist challenges us to consider questions regarding the audience of and interest in these monuments, their need and origin, and the future relevance of these historical figures. Plastic Histories facilitates a process that enables the public to engage with the monuments in a way that disrupts normative assimilation of the everyday environment. The project also encourages one to move beyond the myopic history of white, male privilege to one of racial and gender inclusivity. It is in this way that Plastic Histories plays a productive role in queering one’s gaze and imagining an alternative South African reality. A queer perspective of these

40 41 monuments recognises that nationalism is in fact a feminist and queer issue, and monuments of a bygone time will momentarily be Like Muholi’s work, Plastic Histories presents an alternative view of histories that challenges our normative gaze. The queer figure thus employed to empower and commemorate an unacknowledged South African history. resists easy categorisation, becoming central to allowing a future nationalist discourse that is removed from a heterosexist family trope; a trope that has been complicit in valuing certain bodies and identities more than others. Contemporary visual projects in South Africa Aydemir’s project opens a critical space to examine an untold herstory. The stories of the historically defined other become central to must acknowledge the powerful role of heteronormative signifiers in the development of a nationalist identity. In Plastic Histories, this project. While Plastic Histories commemorates the lives of the broadly defined other, I would like to suggest that gay and lesbian Aydemir challenges us to look once more at objects that have become habitualised in our landscape, to refocus our gaze in an attempt citizens can also play a central role in breaking away from the traditional notion of the nuclear family where “women embody tradition to disrupt highly nationalistic narratives, and to ‘re-read’ these monuments which present only one version of the past. and keep it alive at the hearth, while men forge out and ahead into modernity” (Munro, B. 2009: 405). Brenna Munro poignantly highlights the danger of viewing the nation as a family romance: Nadine Lake

nations are commonly represented through the iconography of family, and the tropes of birth and the child often stand in for both national origins and patriotic futures, symbolically binding notions of national belonging to biological reproduction and McClintock, A. 1995. Imperial leather: Race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge. thus heterosexuality. If the (innocent) child is the opposite of the (depraved) queer, the queer is stranger rather than family, outsider rather than citizen. (405) McClintock, A., Mufti, A., and Shohat, E. (eds). 2004. Dangerous liaisons: Gender, nation & postcolonial perspectives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. This poses particular challenges for any citizen that falls outside of the normative categories associated with nationalism. While the South African constitution stipulates that discrimination may not take place on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexual Muholi, Z. 2010. Faces and phases. Munich, Berlin, London and New York: Prestel. orientation, it is clear that certain heteronormative identities continue to be favoured in this democratic dispensation. One particular Munro, B. 2009. Queer family romance: Writing the “new” South Africa in the 1990s. A journal of lesbian and gay studies, 15(3), p. example being the rise of ‘corrective rapes’ of black lesbians in South Africa where heterosexuality is viewed as the only legitimate 397-439. account of sexuality. A distinct example of the necessity to queer a heteronormative idea of nationalism can be found in the work of South African visual activist and lesbian artist, Zanele Muholi. Muholi documents black lesbian lives in straight portraits and succeeds Van Wyk, L. 2010. Homophobic claims ‘baseless, insulting’. Available at http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-03-05-xingwana- in queering the viewer’s gaze. Muholi’s photography resists any easy categorisation and a photograph entitled “[w]hat don’t you see homophobic-claims-baseless-insulting [Accessed 25 June 2014]. when you look at me?” cleverly initiates different ways of seeing and looking. Muholi challenges the heteronormative gaze and her documentary project represents black lesbian sexualities in textured, rich, and diverse ways. Through this positive imagery and visibility, her work aspires to subvert the dehumanising and delegitimising practices that are associated with colonialist, racist, and heterosexist thinking and discourse. Muholi’s work, however, has often been misunderstood, and the controversial and so-called confrontational nature of her photography has often been met with disgust and contempt. Lulu Xingwana, South African minister of Arts and Culture, was shocked by Muholi’s photography at an exhibition held at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg in 2009. The work, which depicted intimacy between black lesbians, was described by Xingwana as “pornographic,” and “immoral, offensive, and going against nation- Nadine Lake obtained her MA Gender Studies qualification from the University of the Free State (UFS). Her PhD study focuses on building.” The engendered nature of nationalism poses challenges for queer figures in contemporary South African discourse. Women’s ‘corrective rape’ and the homophobic everyday in contemporary South African cultural texts. Nadine has recently been awarded an needs have historically been defined relationally to those of men with their national citizenship being granted through marriage. A Erasmus Mundus (EU Saturn) Scholarship that will enable her to complete her Doctoral Studies at the Centre for Gender Research at woman’s role as wife and mother therefore became a symbolic signifier for her function in the South African nationalist imperative. The Uppsala University, Sweden. She is currently employed as Director of the Gender Studies programme housed in the Centre for Africa development of nationalist identity for both white and black South Africans foregrounded women as symbolic bearers of the nation and Studies, UFS. Her research interests include feminist literary and cultural studies, gender and masculinity studies, queer theory, and these nationalist discourses continue to be employed in the country’s political, economic, and social discourses. theories of embodiment.

42 43 Plastic Histories: Steyn in front of UFS Main Building 44 45 Credits Curators Dr Lis Lange | Acting Vice-Rector: Academic Carli Leimbach | Executive Creative Producer Senior Director SITUATE Art in Festivals Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning Dr Ricardo Peach | Director University of the Free State Programme for Innovation in Artform Development Nadine Lake | Programme Director Angela de Jesus | Art Curator Gender Studies Programme University of the Free State University of the Free State

Production Poets Charmaine Mrwebi | Gisela Ullyatt Adri van Veijeren | Director Kagisho Kolwane | Tessa Ndlovu Vryfees Professor Nicky Morgan | Vice-Rector: Operations Augmented reality University of the Free State Warren Armstrong Rosemary Miller | CEO/Artistic Director Mandi-Anne Bezuidenhout | Dr Ricardo Peach Salamanca Art Centre Kate Dezarnaulds | Business Development Consultant Livestreaming Gavin Coetzer Lezanda du Plessis | Production Co-ordinator Vryfees Publicity and communications Maritsa Barlow | Production Manager Tiani Chillemi | DeCode Media Vryfees Johannes Deetlefs | Silverrocket Creative Mandi-Anne Bezuidenhout | PIAD Production Assistant University of the Free State Photographs Cigdem Aydemir | Mandi-Anne Bezuidenhout Contributors Production crew Professor Jonathan J Jansen | Vice-Chancellor and Rector Robyn-Leigh Hudson University of the Free State Mine Kleynhans | Isaai Thabiso Titi Professor André Keet | Director Institute of Reconciliation and Social Justice Production volunteers Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery | University of the Free State University of the Free State Karla Benade | Chris Kleynhans | Jeannie Johnston 205 Nelson Mandela Ave, Bloemfontein, 9301, South Africa Louis Krüger | Preshton Swartz | Caronice Oss PO Box 339 (12), Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa

+27 (0) 51 401 2706 | [email protected]

www.ufs.ac.za | www.vryfees.co.za

Presented by: Principal supporters: Additional support: ISBN Number: 978-0-86886-824-0 © 2014 Cigdem Aydemir © 2014 Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, University of the Free State

46 47 #PinkPresidents

48 #PinkPresidents