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08 August 2018 Photo Rulanzen Martin
WomensMonth Art exhibition honours courageous South African women
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela became affectionately known as the ‘Mother of the Nation’. She passed away on 2 April 2018. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela by Alf Khumalo on display at the Oliewenhuis Art Gallery.
Art in its many forms has always challenged controversial issues in national and international discourse. The exhibition in commemoration of Women’s Day, titled Speaking out and standing up: An exhibition in honour of South African women, highlights women’s voices by narrating their own life histories. 

In collaboration with the Oliewenhuis Art Museum, the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) at the University of the Free State hosted an art exhibition on 1 August 2018. The exhibition took place on the same day as the national #TotalShutDown protests challenging gender-based violence and rape across South Africa. The exhibition included numerous South African female artists who have combined art and activism and was curated by Yolanda de Kock from Oliewenhuis. The works are on display at Oliewenhuis until 26 August 2018.

The historical representation of South African women

“Tonight’s exhibition focuses on the historical and contemporary representation of SA women, and one woman that deserves acknowledgement, is Winnie Madikizela-Mandela,” said Dr Nadine Lake, Gender Studies Programme Director at CGAS. She also highlighted the fact that “Madikizela-Mandela’s life attests to the multifaceted nature of black women’s lives. Her life reveals that black women are not automatically regarded as agents in their own right, but face discrimination, isolation, and exclusion when they step out of the parameters defined for them.” 

Dr Lake furthermore asserted that, “South African Women’s Month and Day is a reflection and commemoration of women’s achievements but is increasingly being criticised by feminists across the country. While the constitution enshrines the rights of women and prohibits discrimination, it has become clear that there is a huge disconnection between an aspirational ideology and women’s lived realities.” 

Women should lead their own narrative

Sharon Snell, Chief Executive Officer of the National Museum, said, “The dominant voice about Women’s Day is to spoil women and to give them flowers and chocolates on the day, in the same way as for Mother’s Day.” 

Women’s Day has unfortunately been equated to the traditional role that women play. The purpose of Women’s Day is to change those perceptions and to highlight issues of inequality. Snell said, “It is time for women to lead their own narrative.”

The exhibition highlights the important intersection between art and activism and focuses on aspects such as gender-based violence, homosexuality, corrective rape, domesticity and intersectionality, consumerism and feminism, traditional and family histories, women’s and children’s rights, identity and gender, bullying and domestic violence. Snell emphasised the fact that art has not been silenced and has carefully been articulating these important messages around gendered and social inequalities. 

News Archive

“I, too, am an African,” says visiting US drama professor
2013-03-06

 
Africans are of blood and of soil, says Prof Charles Dumas in his inaugural lecture at the UFS. Speaking on the topic I, too, am an African, Prof Dumas reminisced about his life and experiences on the continent.
Photo: Minette Grove
05 March 2013

Lecture (pdf)

What is an African? Is it those born in Africa, defined in racial and genealogical terms, or those who identifies with the continent in nationality and ancestral location? Did the descendants of enslaved Africans in the US, the Caribbean or Brazil lose their Africaness when their ancestors were put on slave ships to the New World?

These were some of the questions raised by Prof Charles Dumas, visiting senior professor in the Department Drama and Theatre Arts, in his inaugural lecture at the university.

Proclaiming attachment to the continent, Prof Dumas told his audience there are two types of Africans: Africans of the blood and Africans of the soil. In a speech titled, “I, too, am an African,” he stated that he lay claim to his ancestral birthright not because of blood relationship to an identifiable ethnic group or birthright to the continent, but because he earned it.

“I suggest another way that one can be an African, is through trial and struggle to be reborn an African in spirit. It is a ritual journey that may be taken by anyone. For, after all, if we are to believe the anthropologists who tell us that human life as we know it began in the Olduvai Gorge, genetically we are all African in origin.”

Prof Dumas, a senior professor at Penn State University in the USA, took the audience on a journey of his experiences on the continent, starting in 1978 when he first came to South Africa as a legal observer. Noticing the changes between Apartheid and today’s South Africa, he said this generation are committed to learn from each other – and that is the most important, he said.

“With their hopes and aspirations they earnestly desire to live in the new South Africa that we promised them. We must support them in their effort. It is time we stored our old baggage in the closet.”

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