Her series of etchings on windows of District Six scenes will transport the viewer to the past. The Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, where the exhibition is to be hosted from February 4 through March 2, is perfectly located for this project, as it enjoys a view over the empty land where a former vibrant neighborhood used to stand. On one of the gallery’s windows, an engraving will bring District Six back to life. “It will take you back to what you would have seen in the ‘60s [before the demolition].”
Looking to the past is a recurring theme in Williamson’s work, who moved to South Africa from England at age 7 in 1948, the same year the National Party gained power and started introducing apartheid laws.
“We have to reflect on the past, not to hold us back, but to make sure we’re not making the same mistakes all over again.”
In her series There’s something I must tell you, Williamson documents six conversations between veteran women activists in the struggle against apartheid, and their ‘granddaughters’. “I wanted to know whether their granddaughters even knew the details [of their role in the struggle],” she explains. “Of course they knew some of it, but life goes on — you’re sitting at lunch on a Sunday and you’re not talking about what it was like in jail 20 years ago.”
It was only when she started working in advertising in New York that Williamson, a trained journalist, began exploring art, taking night classes in the city. Upon returning to South Africa, at the height of apartheid, she began participating in human rights movements, which fed her parallel interests in art and journalism. “I was trying to get stories [about the human rights activities I was involved with] into newspapers, working with local communities and taking what I was learning from that and making art around it,” she recounts.
To a certain extent, Williamson’s activism still informs her work, which often deals with contentious subjects like HIV/ AIDS and political oppression.
“It’s trying to give a voice to people that might not otherwise be heard.”
She considers her role to be one of a mediator, “someone who’s able to take something and put in into the art world.” As opposed to journalists, who have to report the facts, “artists have the liberty of interpreting and casting a new light on events,” she explains.
Publishing a new book, entitled Sue Williamson: Life and Work, published by Skira, which spans her entire career since 1979, has allowed Williamson to reflect on her work as an artist and activist, highlighting threads she hadn’t always realized were there. “What became clear to me...was how important those years were where we wrote things on walls, the idea of getting the feelings of people out on the street.”
Her ongoing series, “Other Voices, Other Cities”, was inspired by the work she did in District Six, asking people why they felt they should stay in a particular place. Touring cities across the world, she asks locals this question. In an age of globalization and when much of the world is in constant flux, the dialogue created by residents of different cities is engaging and revealing. Cities in the series include Johannesburg, London, Berlin, Krakow, New York, Istanbul, Havana, and soon, Paris.
This ‘word on the street’ fascinates her. “I’m always interested in the contemporary moment, what is happening now, what people are thinking now, how things that are happening in the country are affecting people, old and young.” The current political situation in South Africa continues to impact her work, to a certain extent. Recently, she participated in the #ZumaMustFall campaign, a nationwide protest demanding the ANC government to remove president Jacob Zuma from power. “I really felt I had to say something,” she says. “He has built himself into this padded corner surrounded by layers and layers of cronies. He is completely self-serving. He only cares about his family and his friends and protecting himself, he doesn’t really care about the country at all.”
Yet, she is encouraged by young South Africans, who despite acknowledging that there problems, don’t want to abandon home to try and build a better life somewhere else. “They feel free. They were born into freedom, and that’s something they truly value.”
Sue Williamson / Other Voices, Other Cities: Youth facing history, Krakow, 2011 / Other Voices, Other Cities: Who is Johannes? Johannesburg, 2009. Images courtesy of the artist.
