#Harambee63 in South Africa – Wits University #H63SA #Art

Albertina Sisulu is featured on the gumboots as a face of Panafricanism

#Harambee63 will be showing at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits Uni.) from the 9th to the 12 of April 2014.

The main focus for he installation will be about how South Africa was key to the movement for freedom for Black and Coloured people across the continent and globally. Interestingly, the struggle for the very same country that produced Africa’s National Anthem would continue until 1990 with the release of Nelson Mandela and its first democratic elections in 1994.

It is a privilege to be showing the exhibition in one of the oldest universities in SA. It is an even bigger privilege because both Nelson and Winnie Mandela went to school here.

Nelson Mandela did his first TV interview while in hiding within the period that #Harambee63 tackles. It is in this interview that he spoke these words that intimated that the time for non-violence had ended:

…There are many people who feel, that is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks, on an unarmed and defenseless people. And I thinking the time has come for us to consider in the light of our experiences, at this day at home, whether the methods we have applied so far are adequate.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/fPofm50MHW8]

The exhibition is supported by both the African Literature Department and the African Studies Department.

#Harambee63 (#H63SA) places the period of independence, specifically 1960 – 1963 as a key marker of the global movement against the oppression of Black and Coloured people. Borrowing heavily from South African influences, the installation demonstrates that the struggle for freedom was universal and cyclical.

*Special thanks to Uhuru Brown who has been such great support throughout #Harambee63

 

Unpacking #Harambee63

Written by Wambui