kwere kwere / journeys into strangeness
A multimedia exhibition on the history of migration and identity in South Africa
Curator: Rory Bester
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INTRODUCTION
BY RORY BESTER
Taking as its starting point the rising tide of xenophobia and violence against foreigners, many of whom are migrants, refugees or asylum seekers, Kwere Kwere / Journeys into Strangeness is a critical exploration of the history of migration and identity in South Africa. The ways in which we make and maintain borders, the ways in which we undertake cross-border journeys as migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, the sense of uneasiness and displacement we feel in a strange place, and the sense of belonging and home we forge in a strange land are but four of a number of ways in which migration and identity play themselves out in the South African landscape. Kwere Kwere is a constellation of these four thematic areas.
In choosing to explore borders, journeys, displacement and home, an emphasis has been placed on examples that trace the impact of colonial and apartheid racial practices on contemporary attitudes to strangers. Any examination of South African responses to ‘foreigners’ is obliged to explore a history of ‘strangness’ that extends to banishment, Bantustans, ethnicity, forced removals, migrant labour and pass laws. Kwere Kwere explores the criminalisation of migrants – in terms of their political and economic status – as an attitude and response that is inherited and repeated from the past.
In addition to examining the historical precedents for contemporary attitudes to the politics of migration, Kwere Kwere also explores the role of culture in using histories and patterns of migration to perpetuate myths and stereotypes about social identity. Kwere Kwere attempts to debunk some of these social myths about strangers, myths that are, ironically enough, often generated within the cultural domain.
The choice of the Castle of Good Hope to premiere the Kwere Kwere exhibition was based on the formative place of this structural fortification in a history of inclusion and exclusion. It was through an extended network of physical barriers such as these that South Africa journeyed into increasingly rigid patterns of familiarity and strangeness. The video and slide projections on the walls of B Block were not only explorations of the contested politics of migration and identity but are also formal interventions in the structural iconography of the Castle of Good Hope.
The fundamental difference between the display of the exhibition at the Castle of Good Hope and at the Gertrude Posel Gallery is the extensive use of television monitors with headsets at the latter venue. The headsets allow a unique viewing experience, one that not only forces viewers to ‘queue’ to watch the work (thereby evoking the role and place of queuing in experiences of migration), but also evokes the use of headsets during the TRC process for the purposes of hearing the translations of testimonies. By isolating the viewer within the space the headsets offer a similar ‘translation’ of the cultural experience of migration.
In bringing together projects by contemporary artists, filmmakers and photographers, along with selections from historical films and television news, Kwere Kwere encompasses experiences of alienation, banishment, loss, migration, defiance, displacement, home, isolation, nationalism, return and restitution. As such the exhibition is an attempt to create awareness and debate around the history and politics of social discrimination against the victims and survivors of forced migration in southern Africa.