The sixteenth of December is a day steeped in significance. It has been named, claimed and also retrospectively framed. During various moments of history this day has commemorated anguished battles and victories, based on the dominant perspective.
An exhibition curated from the Oliewenhuis Art Museum’s Permanent Collection and ArtbankSA’s collection curated by Yolanda de Kock. The exhibition opened on 25 November 2021 in the Main Building, Oliewenhuis Art Museum.
Culture is not fixed. It ebbs and flows from one generation to the next. Our ancestors and elders bequeath to us gifts of knowledge and embodied knowing. Yet sometimes we forget. When the rituals that contain and connect us are lost we become untethered from our communities and unable to contain the depth of wisdom acquired before us.
In South Africa the month of August is synonymous with honoring women: their courage, strength and endurance. Celebrated on the 9th of August, the day reminds us of the courageous march in 1956 by approximately 20 000 women who protested against legislation aimed at tightening the apartheid government’s control over the movement of black women in urban areas.
Over the last year, the pandemic has cast a long shadow over our lives, but while the national lockdown saw an overall decline in crime, acts of Gender Based Violence spiked dramatically. According to Amnesty International, in just the first week of lockdown, 2 300 calls for help were made to the South African Police Service. Only three months later, a tragic tally of twenty-one women (and children) had been killed by their intimate partners. Although necessary to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the lockdown has created a context in which many women are trapped with no way to escape the violent hands of their abusers.