“The creation of Jo’burg Man is the result of collaboration between photographer Dale Yudelman and artist Arlene Amaler-Raviv. It formed part of the exhibition ‘One‘ which was shown at the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town in 2000. The general theme of the show spoke about the power of the individual.
Jo’burg Man was selected as one of twenty artworks featured in the Johannesburg Art City Project and was reproduced to billboard size for display on the side of a building in downtown Johannesburg (Main Street / cnr Simmonds). The work also forms part of many private and corporate art collections in South Africa, Europe and the United States.
In the context of South Africa’s recent history – Jo’burg Man celebrates the victory over injustices of the countries past. Continue reading →
“It is a simple fact: if schooling in Africa was a commercial enterprise, it would have been closed down because of low output and low levels of efficiency. Equally, if children could vote in elections, schools would have been closed by popular acclaim for largely failing to deliver on their promises.
I want to argue in this three-article series that schooling as currently conceived is an inappropriate and highly inefficient way of replicating the elite, because it sacrifices most children. Equally, it cannot be the basis for growing an educated, enterprising society. I will look at why this is the case and what can be done about it by exploring how schooling should at least be reformed.” Continue reading →
Kontinuitäten von strukturellem Rassismus nach 1994
(Text in/aus Diskussion mit Lonwabo Kilani, für “Malmoe“, Dez. 2012)
New Brighton/Marikana, Südafrika
Red Location ist die älteste Sektion des New Brighton Townships im Norden von Port Elizabeth und bekannt als Ort latenter Proteste und Demonstrationen gegen das Apartheid-Regime. Das Red Location Museum dokumentiert diese in Wechselausstellungen innerhalb der dort installierten 12 eisernen „Erinnerungsboxen“. Ein permanenter Fotoessay erzählt von den Ereignissen des 21. März 1985, als mindestens 20 Demonstrant_innen von der Polizei während des Gedenktages an Sharpeville 1960 erschossen wurden. Continue reading →
Der Population Registration Act von 1950 zielte darauf ab, jede einzelne Person in Südafrika rassisch/rassistisch zu klassifizieren. Die ersten beiden Zahlen der identity number verwiesen auf diese Klassifizierung (siehe “pencil test“): “00″ für “white South African”, 01 für für “coloureds”, 02 für “Malay” usw. In seiner Biographie über Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, “How Can Man Die Better” (1990), schreibt Benjamin Pogrund:
“Those vital two digits were intended to, and did, affect life from birth to death, with every detail specified and fixed by law: in which hospital you could born; in which suburb you could live; which house you could buy; which farm you could buy; which nursery school and school you could attend and which university or technical college; which cinemas and theatres you could go; Continue reading →
Cape Town District Six: “District Six was named the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town in 1867. Originally established as a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants, District Six was a vibrant centre with close links to the city and the port. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the process of removals and marginalisation had begun. Continue reading →
“On a rainy evening in early March 1982, fifty-seven men and women, accompanied by fourteen children, arrived at St. George’s Cathedral in the centre of Cape Town. They came looking for a safe place, a place of refuge where they could pray, fast, and seek relief from reach of an apartheid government intent on hounding, arresting, and deporting them to the former Transkei ‘homeland’. Those who came to the Cathedral that evening were part of a wider group of black (African) women and men living ‘illegally’ on a sliver of land located on the edge of Old Crossroads in Nyanga (Nyanga Bush) since early 1981, all wanting ‘passes and places to stay’ in Cape Town.”
(Josette Cole: Behind and Beyond the Eiselen Line. Cape Town, St. George’s Cathedral Crypt Memorial and Witness Centre 2012. S. 1) Continue reading →
Liberation. A Journal of Democratic Discussion (Sept. 1956)
“The fundamental economic problem of the Transkei, as other Reserves, is not difficult to state, or once stated, to solve. The land area is far too small and infertile to support the population. Therefore, in order to end the terrible poverty, mainutrition, famines, suffering and misery of the Reserves, it is allocate much more land for African peasants. But this statement of the problem, and its obvious solution is by no means agreeable to the rulers of South Africa, and never has been. The wealthy farmers have no intention of parting with the land that was taken by conquest long ago. And, in fact, a condition of poverty and near-starvation in the Reserves is welcomed by the mining-magnates, the farmers and other employers of African labour, who regard hunger and destitution as their main allies and recruiting agents for a bigger and cheaper supply of labour-power. (…) The latest in this series of ‚shemes’ to solve the desperate needs of a land-hungry people without giving them land, is Dr. Verword’s Bantu Authorities Act. (…) The truth of the matter is that the new plan does not set out to create opportunities for ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT of the African. (…) The best contribution they have made has been to ma. (sic! …manufacturing? (J.K.)) cheap coffins for the trading stations to sell at exorbitant prices to bury the victims of map-fostered FAMINES IN THE RESERVES. (…) What is the management going to manage since there is no labour, no capital, no land? It is a day-dream that is not worth a minute’s consideration. (…)
MASS DISSMISSALS AT THE END OF THE YEAR AND MASS-REMPLOYMENT OF THE SAME WORKERS ON BEGINNERS WAGES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT YEARS – these and other methodes are employed in varying degrees to keep the wages down and to pile up profits to the skies.”
(Govan Mbeki: The Transkei Tragedy. A study in the Bantu Authorities Act (Part 2). in: Liberation. A Journal of Democratic Discussion, November 1956. S. 14-18.) Continue reading →
“This is my story and the story of my family. We grew up and lived in District Six, an area of approximately one and a half square kilometers, which spread along the flank of Table Mountain south of the ventre of Cape Town. District Six was given this name in 1867 because it was then the sixth municipal district in Cape Town. It was originally a mixed community of freed slaves, immigrants, labourers, merchants and artisans. Later it included a different kind of mix – artists, politicians, businessmen, musicians, writers teachers, sheikhs, priests, gangsters, sportsmen, housewives and always lots of children.
Sixty to seventy thousand people lived together in great harmony until disaster struck our community. (…) On the 11th of February 1966 District Six was officially declared an area for white people only. This is one day i will never forget. Continue reading →
„This is the book that was waiting to be written.
There have been many accounts of life in the active struggle against the arpartheid regime but this one is a fearless exploration into the deepest ground – the personal moral ambiguity of betrayal under brutal interrogation – actual betrayal of the writer by the most trusted associate and closest friend; and the lifetime question of whether one would have betrayed that same friend under such circumstances, oneself. …. Unforgettable, invaluable in facing now the ambiguities of our present and future.” Continue reading →
// Österreich gibt sterbliche Überreste südafrikanischer Ureinwohner aus öffentlichen Sammlungen an Südafrika zurück
Feierliche Zeremonie am 19. April 2012
Im Rahmen einer feierlichen Zeremonie in der südafrikanischen Botschaft in Wien werden die sterblichen Überreste des Ehepaares Klaas und Trooi Pienaar am 19. April 2012 dem stellvertretenden südafrikanischen Minister für Kunst und Kultur, S. E. Dr. Joseph Phaahla, übergeben. Nach zwei Rückgaben von Gebeinen indigener Personen aus Australien setzt die Republik Österreich damit einen weiteren Schritt des gegenseitigen Respekts. Continue reading →
“The creation of Jo’burg Man is the result of collaboration between photographer Dale Yudelman and artist Arlene Amaler-Raviv. It formed part of the exhibition ‘One‘ which was shown at the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town in 2000. The general theme of the show spoke about the power of the individual.
