Exchanging Symbols: Monuments and Memorials in Post-Apartheid South
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his book comprises eight essays that consider the politics and polemics of monuments in Africa in the wake of the Exchanging Symbols #RhodesMustFall movement in 2015. The removal of the TRhodes statue from UCT main campus is the pivot on which the discussion of monuments as heritage in South Africa turns. It raised a number of questions about the implementation of heritage policy and the unequal deployment of memorials in the South African and other postcolonial landscapes. The essays in this volume are written by authors coming from different backgrounds and different disciplines. They address different aspects of this event and its aftermath, offering some intensive critique of existing monuments, analysing the successes of new initiatives, meditating on the visual resonances of all monuments and attempting to map ways of moving forward. Editors | Anitra Nettleton & Mathias Alubafi Fubah Alubafi & Mathias Nettleton | Anitra Editors In the essays in this book the authors tackle policy questions, aspects of history and some of the new monuments aimed at redress in the present South African climate. It is to be hoped Exchanging Symbols that a reading of this book will inform the decisions made by Monuments and memorials in post-apartheid South Africa politicians and culture brokers when they spend taxpayers’ money on the erection of monuments. It would be refreshing if the artists commissioned to make such monuments could look at African traditions of figuration and commemoration which fall outside the monumental, and if the artists could be professional and theoretically informed of the ways in which monuments are commissioned, planned and accessed. Editors 9 781928 480587 Anitra Nettleton & Mathias Alubafi Fubah Exchanging Symbols | Monuments and memorials in post-apartheid South Africa Published by African Sun Media under the SUN PReSS imprint All rights reserved Copyright © 2019 African Sun Media and the editor(s) This publication was subjected to an independent double-blind peer evaluation by the publisher. The editor(s) and the publisher have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of copyrighted material. Refer all enquiries to the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, photographic or mechanical means, including photocopying and recording on record, tape or laser disk, on microfilm, via the Internet, by e-mail, or by any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission by the publisher. Views reflected in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. First edition 2020 ISBN 978-1-928480-58-7 ISBN 978-1-928480-59-4 (e-book) https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928480594 Set in Lora 10/16 Cover design, typesetting and production by African Sun Media Cover image: Statue of Paul Kruger, Guy Königstein SUN PReSS is an imprint of African Sun Media. Scholarly, professional and reference works are published under this imprint in print and electronic formats. This publication can be ordered from: [email protected] Takealot: bit.ly/2monsfl Google Books: bit.ly/2k1Uilmafricansunmedia.store.it.si (e-books)Amazon Kindle: amzn.to/2ktL.pkL Visit africansunmedia.co.za for more information. Exchanging Symbols Monuments and memorials in post-apartheid South Africa Editors Anitra Nettleton & Mathias Alubafi Fubah Contents Introduction Mathias Alubafi Fubah & Anitra Nettleton ............................................................... xi Chapter 1 Statues of Liberty? ............................................................................................ 1 Sharlene Swartz, Benjamin Roberts, Steven L Gordon & Jarè Struwig Chapter 2 By design, survival and recognition .............................................................. 31 Anitra Nettleton Chapter 3 In whose name? On statues, place and pain in South Africa ................. 57 Alude Mahali Chapter 4 Troubling statues: A symptom of a complex heritage complex ............ 85 Sipokazi Madida Chapter 5 Heritage denunciation and heritage enunciation? ................................... 121 Thabo Manetsi Chapter 6 Present absence ................................................................................................. 159 Guy Königstein Chapter 7 This fragile present: Verfremdung as a strategy of memorial in the work of contemporary South African artists ................................. 175 Nancy Dantas Chapter 8 Struggle heroes and heroines statues and monuments in Tshwane, South Africa ......................................................... 209 Mathias Alubafi Fubah & Catherine Ndinda CONTRIBUTORS Steven Lawrence Gordon Dr Steven Lawrence Gordon is a Senior Research Specialist at the Human Science Council working in Democracy and Governance and Service Delivery research programme. He is also a Research Associate in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. Dr Gordon has a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Masters of Arts in Social Science from the University of Albert Ludwigs Freiburg. He has worked in the quantitative social sciences for more than ten years. In the last decade Dr Gordon has focused on public opinion research, investigating issues related to social justice, intergroup relations and xenophobia. Alude Mahali Dr Alude Mahali is a Senior Research Specialist in the Education and Skills Development (ESD) programme at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). She holds a Master degree and PhD from the University of Cape Town. She is an evidence-informed social science researcher responsible for conducting high level scholarly research and developing policies that recognise South Africa’s complex social, economic, educational and political environment. She currently works mainly in the areas of transforming higher education and promoting anti-racism and citizenship education. Her most recent publications look at the domestic worker trope, social protest and youth activism, intersectional understandings of education, language and youth navigational capacities. Alude is currently editor of the South African Theatre Journal and an honorary lecturer in the Department of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of KwaZulu Natal. vi Contributors Anitra Nettleton Anitra Nettleton is currently employed as Professor at the University of Johannesburg to teach African art. She is Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She was Chair and Director of the Mellon-Funded Centre for Creative Arts of Africa at the Wits Art Museum (2012-2015). Instrumental in founding the Standard Bank African Art Collection at Wits, she has curated many exhibitions. She has published articles in international and local journals, books and chapters in books, and has supervised many doctoral and masters’ candidates, focusing on historical and contemporary arts in Africa. Nancy Dantas Nancy Dantas recently submitted her PhD thesis under the supervision of Professor Ruth Simbao (Rhodes University). Titled An Archive of Upset: The Shift from Commissioning to Curating Through South Africa’s Representations at the Bienal de São Paulo and the Interstitial Nexus of Leonard Tshehla Mohapi Matsoso, her research aims to contribute to a southern perspective of exhibition histories. She has contributed to academic programmes in Art History and Curating at Wits School of Arts and the Centre for Curating the Archive, University of Cape Town. She was the co-founder and artistic director at Marz Galeria, Lisbon. Sipokazi Madida Dr Sipokazi Madida is a lecturer of history at the University of South Africa. She has taught history and history education at the University of the Western Cape and University of Witwatersrand. Her teaching and research interests include public history, heritage, popular culture and oral history. She recently completed her Ph.D titled “Making heritage in post-apartheid South Africa: Agencies, museums and sites”. vii Exchanging Symbols Guy Königstein Born and raised in Israel, Guy Königstein is a graduate of the Design Academy Eindhoven and holds a Master in Applied Arts from the Sandberg Institute Amsterdam. He was awarded with the Design Prize Halle and the Mondriaan Fund for emerging artists, and took part in several international artist residencies, such as Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Joburg Now, Villa Ruffieux and Incheon Artists Platform. Written or built, photographed or cooked, printed or casted, installed or performed, recorded or collaged, Königstein’s works examine his ability as an artist, as well as the capacity of his spectators and co- creators, to participate in an alternative narration of past and future. Sharlene Swartz Professor Sharlene Swartz is a nationally rated South African researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council and an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Fort Hare. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge and her expertise and current research centres on the just inclusion of youth in a transforming society. Her books include Studying while black: Race, education and emancipation in South African universities (2018); Moral eyes: Youth and justice in Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa (2018); Another Country: Everyday Social Restitution (2016); Ikasi: The moral ecology of South Africa’s township youth (2009); and Teenage Tata: Voices of Young Fathers in South Africa (2009). viii Contributors Thabo Manetsi Dr Thabo Manetsi is the Chief Director for Tourism Enhancement at the Department