Within the ArtBankSA collection, through annual acquisition cycles and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP) art creating initiatives, an archive of photography-based artworks has been built. These artworks are more than traditional camera-to-print images, as the material life of the photograph through experimental and hybrid forms employed by the artist has resulted in new ways of presenting an image.
The history of South Africa’s liberation struggle (c. 1960–1994) is a multi-layered saga that is still being uncovered. This process involves oral interviews with veterans and in-depth research conducted in archives and repositories of anti-apartheid movements worldwide. During this ongoing exploration, previously overlooked and unknown aspects of the freedom fighting have emerged. Typically, these ‘hidden histories’ involve the lives and lived experiences of the foot soldiers in both the political resistance and armed battle against apartheid.
It’s a humid and humming Tuesday night. People spill out and slide into the main gallery space of the KwaZulu-Natal Society of Arts (KZNSA) to hear the opening speeches for Izihlahla Ziyokhuluma (Fig. 1), a 10-year anniversary celebration of the Durban-based Amasosha Collective[1] and their artists’ works. Once one makes it through the entry, portraiture made with beads to blue painted and purple hue faces dominate the white walls of the KZNSA gallery.
In primeval forests of West Africa and Central America, as well as in the dark and hidden corners of caves in Texas, plods along a little-known, enigmatic, small and blind arachnid in search of prey. It belongs to the smallest arachnid order, the Ricinulei, and is commonly referred to as a hooded tick-spider. Looking like a mix between a stout-bodied spider, a tick, a World War II tank and just a dash of harvestman, it tracks its victim by chemical scent and minute vibrations. When near, it lunges and grasps its imminent meal with two claws at the tips of the short arms protruding from the bottom of its thickly-armoured body.
Motlalepule Winifred (Winnie) Kgware (née Monyatsi) was born in Thaba Nchu, Orange Free State, on 27 October 1917. She was raised by her aunt in Kroonstad and became a teacher at Thaba Nchu. In 1942, she married a fellow teacher, William Kgware, who later joined the University of the North at Turfloop (currently University of Limpopo) as an academic and eventually became the Turfloop’s first Black Rector in 1977.