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11 June 2021 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Courtesy of artists and the Johannes Stegmann Gallery.

Liminality is an exhibition of first-, second- and third-year student’s work in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of the Free State (UFS). The works are from 2019 and 2020. Created during the hard lockdown of 2020, the artworks provide a glimpse of what students had to deal with and overcome during these times.
 
In a proposal for the exhibition, Angela de Jesus, Curator of the UFS Art Galleries, wrote: “The subtitle of the exhibition is ‘threshold, transition, transformation’ and it refers to the creative processes that students engaged with in these adverse circumstances resulting in a wide array of artworks in both traditional and adapted mediums.”

The exhibition speaks to our shared experiences of insecurity, fragility, and discord, and to the resourcefulness and immutability of creative expression.

The virtual exhibition runs until 2 July 2021.

The exhibition is also currently available for viewing at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, Sasol Library, UFS Bloemfontein Campus. Monday - Friday  09:00 - 16:00.


News Archive

UFS researcher fills void in South African policing history
2017-01-02

Description: Dr Cornelis Muller Tags: Dr Cornelis Muller 

Currently a Postdoctoral fellow in the International
Studies Group, Dr Cornelis Muller’s PhD thesis explores
late nineteenth century South African policing on the
Witwatersrand.
Photo: Rulanzen Martin

“I used policing on the Witwatersrand as a lens through which to examine aspects relating to state formation within the South African Republic.”

This is how Dr Cornelis Muller, a postdoctoral fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State (UFS), described his PhD thesis called Policing the Witwatersrand: A history of the South African Republic Police, 1886-1899. The thesis fills an empirical void in the history of settler colonial policing in South Africa.

His research was also featured in the South African Historical Journal, which is published by Routledge. Dr Muller received his PhD from the UFS during the 2016 Winter Graduation ceremonies. He received a scholarship from the university to conduct his three-year research.

Relationship between police and state examined

The study presents itself as an institutional biography in which the relationship between the South African Republic Police (known as the Zarps), the state, and broader society are examined. The period under investigation was a time when political, economic, and social complexities on the Witwatersrand created tension between South Africa and Great Britain.

An important theme throughout the thesis is the relationship between the police, the mining industry, and the so-called Uitlander community. Crime was also an important contributing factor to the complex relationship that developed between the Zarps and the policed in Johannesburg’s formative years.

“Johannesburg was a town under siege by a variety of crimes which ranged from vagrancy, drunkenness, gambling, and prostitution to robbery, murder, and assault,” said Dr Muller.

Archives in South Africa and Great Britain consulted
“My thesis follows a chronological approach in which various themes accounting for the development of the police on the Witwatersrand are highlighted.” Framed within the bureaucratic and administrative functioning of the Zarps, he examined aspects relating to crime, crisis, and conflict between the police and society. The thesis also details the relationship between the police and Johannesburg’s black community.

As with any historical research, it comprised internal and external source criticism and content analyses of a wide range of archival records.

Dr Muller had the opportunity to visit several archives and libraries in South Africa and Great Britain. “Some of the more important archival collections were assessed at the National Archives in Pretoria.” These included the Archive of the State Attorney and the Archive of the Magisterial District of Johannesburg.

“My study thus adds to scholarship that seeks to provide a more nuanced understanding of the South African Republic’s administrative functioning and internal politics in the late nineteenth century,” concluded Dr Muller.

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