My daughter marching with the spirits of Nelson and Winnie #Mandela outside of the Cradle of Humankind Museum in Mogale, South Africa. It is part of the Long March of Freedom installation, the largest outdoor collection of sculptures in the world.
My son got in on the action as well. The installation chronicles over 350 years of South African #anticolonial struggles. It currently depicts over 100 freedom fighters with 400 more in the process of being added. All are in motion. All are marching towards freedom.
The procession is organized chronologically and begins in the back with the 17th century leader of the Khoikhoi people, Autshumato, who was the first person to be incarcerated at Robben Island (where Mandala would later spend 27 years). No one stands behind him.
Ok, fine, I had to jump in there. But I found it less about placing oneself within the narrative and more about the long wave of history that you got to see roll over you. It was like walking in an activist heaven, with people meeting each other that never could have in IRL.
Imagine an action where Shaka Zulu, #MLK, #Gandhi, and an armed #ANC member all showed up together. All the contradictions, complexities, and messiness of the anti Apartheid struggle are on full display. It's a powerful example of a diasporic Black imaginary at work.
Perhaps most inspiring of all is that this is not the work of a single artist (it would have taken a lifetime anyway given the CRAZY love and attention to detail put into each piece). It was part of a huge collective that included master and novice artists.
All told, I've really come to rethink my understanding of symbolic #reparations after seeing #publichistory done right here in South Africa. For example, the natural history museum inside had a collage of @Adbusters art that was talking about climate change, poverty, etc.
You simply would not see this kind of overt political messaging within a mainstream natural history museum in the U.S. South African activists are trying to transform every corner of their society...making connections for a public yearning for a better way.
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