The Marikana, Ten Years On exhibition seeks to address questions of accountability and justice around the Marikana massacre.
Curator Zodwa Skeyi-Tutani leads a walkabout to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the massacre through the work of surviving miners, widows and photojournalists.
The exhibition at the National Arts Festival combines paintings and drawings by family members of the deceased who participated in art-making workshops conducted by Kulumani Support Groups.
This was then workshopped with text and photography from After Marikana, the 10-year “slow journalism” project by Paul Botes and Niren Tolsi.
The artwork and photography explore loss, intergenerational trauma and memory, migrant labour and mining, and the bittersweet ironies of lives recovered after death.
When you walk into the exhibition you are welcomed by the sounds of the Marikana widows singing “Kulungile” (It is well) which was recorded while they were at the art-making workshops. This really sets the tone of what you are to expect once you get inside the gallery.
The set-up screams home, with old dressing tables that have old photographs of the widows with their late husbands on display, just as one would see in one’s own home.
Skeyi-Tutani said this was to demonstrate that though miners lived in terrible conditions in the mine hostels, they came from homes, and after their deaths there were still people who lived in those homes.
Exhibition photographer Paul Botes’s pictures are bold and they leave you with a sense of sadness. They tell a story of loss, despair and desperation for justice.
The exhibition leaves you wondering if enough was done for the widows and families of those who died on August 16 2012 in Marikana.
- Catch the exhibition 'Marikana, Ten Years On' at the Grahamstown Gallery on June 30 at 11am to 11.45am
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