PRESS KIT for the EXHIBITION PLOUGH BACK THE FRUITS The Struggle for Justice and Restitution The Bodymaps of the Widows of Marikana Ntombizolile Mosebetsane: Without Title. Oil pastels & food colouring on paper, 80 x 100cm, May 2013 Opening: 20 April 2016, 6:00 pm LOCATION: AUSTRIAN UNION ASSOCIATION Johann Böhm Platz 1, A-­‐1020 VIENNA, AUSTRIA (EUROPE) WITH: Bishop Jo Seoka: representative of the Marikana mine workers Ntombizolile Mosebetsane & Agnes Makopano Thelejane: representatives of relatives of the killed mine workers Nomarussia Bonase & Judy Seidman: Khulumani Support Group Queries: for South Africa see: www.basflonmin.com/home/contact Jakob Krameritsch, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien +43 699 19675131 / [email protected] Further Informations: www.basflonmin.com PRESS KIT and printable pictures: www.basflonmin.com/home/de/presse 1 ABSTRACT ON THE EXHIBITION The Marikana Massacre 16 August 2012, Marikana/South Africa: 34 striking miners of the world´s third-­‐largest platinum mining company LONMIN are shot by the police. It is the worst massacre of South African citizens since Sharpeville in 1960 and the SASOL massacre 1987, it is a turning point in the history of South Africa. But, however, the state, LONMIN’s management and the international community left the families and the survivors largely alone with their desperation. The widows of the killed mine workers wer treated, as they have stated, “like stones”, with no voice to tell what they feel and know and hope. Bodymaps: empowerment, documentation, intervention, art This situation led some relatives of the miners murdered in Marikana to ask the Khulumani Support Group for help. Since it was founded in 1995, this civil society organisation has provided support to (groups of) victims and aims to strengthen and represent communities that are committed to political, social and economic justice and restitution in post-­‐apartheid South Africa. Khulumani began by providing the relatives with a specific platform to meet and to share their experiences; this is linked to traditions that were established during the struggle against apartheid. Similarly, the paintings they produced during the workshop are connected to concepts of ‘art for (national) liberation’. These workshops led to the establishment of a collective, which increasingly began to develop a common voice. However, four years after the massacre, the struggle by the relatives of the workers shot in Marikana – known as the Widows of Marikana – for just and fair compensation is anything but over. Up to now, no reparations were offered to the relatives of the killed mine workers. The ‘bodymaps’, which form the core of the exhibition, are a powerful pictorial expression of the Widows’ collective struggle. The paintings use sketches of the Widow’s bodies as a starting point with which to focus on their own constitution and perspective. The body speaks – through facial expressions, and through composure (while standing, lying, kneeling or running), and through the way in which the arms are positioned (held together over the head, stretched out, gesturing at something, or pressed onto the chest). The colours provide a further level of narration as does their material intensity, which results from a combination of oil paints, watercolours and rippled paper. The body and its setting provide further visualisations of the Widows’ experiences and environments: often the massacre itself moves into the picture; sometimes references are made to the hard reality of life, to existential difficulties and to concerns about the future of – now fatherless – children. However, the images also address the Widows’ hopes, aspirations, key concerns and the demands they are making of Lonmin, the South African state and the police – in other words, those who are responsible for the massacre. The bodymaps are testimony to an analysis conducted from the perspective of people who were directly affected by it. The fact that this perspective has been, and continues to be, marginalised, makes these images all the more valuable. This context and the self-­‐confident manner in which the Widows position themselves result in images that intervene in existing power relations. European Entanglement The Widows confidently address the criminalisation of their relatives, point to the people who are responsible, name the guilty, and highlight their own marginalisation. They comment on the events that occurred, and on their causes and consequences, and they do so full of anger, at times with irony, sometimes directly, sometimes subtly. It is not only the demands made by the Widows of Marikana and the interventionist nature of their work that deserves our respect and solidarity. Although the paintings make sense as testimony and analysis, it is the force and originality of the work that impresses, amazes and leaves us breathless. This makes in-­‐depth, repeated engagement with the paintings and focused observation particularly rewarding. Finally, the Widows’ work provides visual metaphors that illustrate the consequences of neoliberal and neocolonial resource policy in all of its scandalous normality. These paintings are sovereign counter-­‐images to the polished Potemkin corporate surfaces that seek to normalise, legitimise and perpetuate the scandal. 2 FACTSHEET PLOUGH BACK THE FRUITS The Struggle for Justice and Restitution. The Bodymaps of the Widows of Marikana OPENING: Wednesday, 20 April 2016, 6:00 pm WITH: Bishop Jo Seoka: representative of the Marikana mine workers, Bench Marks Foundation; Ntombizolile Mosebetsane & Agnes Makopano Thelejane: representative of relatives of the killed mine workers; Nomarussia Bonase & Judy Seidman: Khulumani Support Group The opening will be followed by a buffet, invited by the VÖGB, Austrian Union Association Location: ÖGB, Johann-­‐Böhm-­‐Platz 1, 1020 Wien (U2 Donaumarina) GUIDED TOUR BY THE CURATORS by the curators: 3 May, 5.30pm; 6.30pm: Screening followed by Q&A: Miners Shot Down (Rehad Desai, RSA 2013, 84min., OmdtU) THE EXHIBITION RUNS from 21 April to 25 Mai 2016 (Mo-­‐Fr from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm), admission is free. WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY Mary Fundzama, Betty Lomasontfo Gadlela, Ezekiel Galawe, Maren Grimm, Daniel Letebele, Jakob Krameritsch, Pauline Matabane, Ntombizolile Mosebetsane, Xolelwa Mpumza, Thembani Mthinti, Songstress Notukile Nkonyeni, Nombulelo Ntonga, Zameka Nungu, Asanda Phakathi, Judy Seidman, Ntombiluelile Sependu, Makopane Sompeta, Agnes Makopane Thelejane, Nolundi Tukuza, Nokuthula Evelyn Zibambela CURATED BY NomaRussia Bonase & Judy Seidman, Khulumani Support Group Simone Knapp & Boniface Mabanza, Kirchliche Arbeitsstelle Südliches Afrika, KASA Maren Grimm & Jakob Krameritsch, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien PRINTABLE IMAGES: www.basflonmin.com/home/de/presse FURTHER INFORMATIONS on the exhibition, the catalogue and the speaker’s tour to Austria, Germany and Switzerland: www.basflonmin.com FOR FORMER PRESS REPORTS (FAZ, Neues Deutschland, Jungle World, Daily Maverick ...) unter: WWW.basflonmin.com/home/de/archive 3 TO THOSE VIEWING THE EXHIBITION OF THE MARIKANA WIDOW’S ART WORK WELCOME SPEECH by NomaRussia Bonase It is a great honour for us to have this opportunity to present this exhibition of art-­‐work by and about the widows of the Marikana massacre, that terrible time that happened in August 2012, at the platinum mines in South Africa. This exhibition shows the output of several art-­‐making workshops held with the relatives of men killed in that massacre. In these workshops, these women drew and painted for the first time in their lives, finding a way to create and express the soul-­‐shattering experience of the massacre of those they loved. Making these works of art gave these women a way to break the silence; it took them beyond sitting silent, treated as no more than stones in the path, with no voice to tell what they feel and know and hope. This exhibition is about the understanding, creativity, and skill of ordinary women from the grassroots, sharing their knowledge and experience, voicing out their pain, through the first steps of that long journey towards healing, peace-­‐building, and reconciliation. The pictures speak to restoration of human dignity, to the transformation of lives through the struggle for redress, reparation, and restorative justice. It is also a song of hope; and a promise; that as we look at the wealth dug from our soil, and taken in distress out of our lives, that one day we will plough back the fruits. In making these pictures, and showing them, we hope to touch the hearts of caring people throughout the world. We hope to make sure that the stories of the Marikana widows reaches out to everybody in every country; to make sure that we as human beings work together to stop such violations of our humanity. I, who address you today, am NomaRussia Bonase, national organizer of Khulumani Support Group. Khulumani means We are speaking out, in Zulu. Khulumani is a membership-­‐based organization started by women activists in 1995, to support people whose human rights were damaged by the crime against humanity called apartheid. Khulumani was formed when South Africa’s parliament planned to set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to find truth and justice for apartheid violations – without seeking the participation of those who carried the costs of the struggle against apartheid in their own minds and bodies. One tool that Khulumani has developed to help people rebuild damaged lives is the process we call the Art, Healing and Heritage workshops. This is the tool we used with the Marikana widows. This exhibition also includes several artworks from of another of Khulumani’s workshops, held in Zamdela, Sasolburg, with ex-­‐workers who survived a deadly industrial strike in 1987-­‐ 88, in the depths of apartheid repression. We believe that themes of despair and hope, struggle and vision, echo between the art of these two workshops, in Zamdela and Marikana. In South Africa, we so often say: against the trauma and the pain we hold up truth, reconciliation, and reparation; and the commitment that this must not happen again. Yet a quarter of a century after the Sasol strike, it happened again at Marikana. 4 The creativity and inspiration of these works here, is for the rebirth of hope and vision, out of the dark pits of our pain. I believe this work is speaking to us; and this is what it says. I thank all of you who have come to view this art, this vision. Your presence and interest, your involvement, gives us hope and energy to do more. We will never give up in our struggle towards social, economic and cultural justice, to assert our human dignity, a candle of hope for all of us in this world today. 5