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The Apartheid Museum guides its visitors through South Africa’s dark history of institutionalized racial segregation from 1948 - 1994, the violence that plagued its opression, the activists who battled the regime and ultimately the onward journey to democracy.
Upon entering, each visitor receives a card classifying them on racial grounds (similar to the passbooks black people were required to carry with them during the Apartheid era) and is required to pass through a turnstile designated to the skin colour stated on their identity card whites and non-whites - the pervasive term given to people of different ethnicities, insinuating that whiteness was the normal standard and anyone of black, coloured, indian heritage was the ‘other’ and abnormal in society. This immediately sparks feelings of discomfort and emphasizes the illogical grounds of the racial code. There is no foyer or entrance hall where groups are able to congregate and socialize, discuss which exhibits they would like to see or layout the rout they wish to take, friends and family members are immediately divided depending on which card they received in a manner that is instantly effective.
There is a collection of shadowing concrete pillars in front of the entrance to the museum, etched with the seven principles of South Africa’s new constitution: democracy, equality, reconciliation, diversity, responsibility, respect and freedom. Each of these lay an optimistic and auspicious tone for navigating South Africa’s transition from apartheid to a ‘Rainbow Nation’ - the term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to describe a racially diverse but united country. The steel letters used to enshrine these values are gradually wearing away with age - perhaps a metaphor conveying that these ideals are beginning to dim.
The structure of the museum observes a linear arrangement. Utilizing an amalgamation of different mediums such as documentary photography, video, text an an array of artefacts to chronicle South Africa’s complicated and racially segregated history. These narratives of apartheid history and its ostracism are separated into smaller groups and displayed over 6,000 square metres of space.
Exhibitions include Apartheid which details the social and political components that resulted in the instation of the apartheid regime and focuses attention on the apartheid era laws assed to establish the apartheid structure of government. The three most important blocks of legislation were: ‘The Race Classification Act’ (every citizen suspected of not being European was classified according to race), ‘The Mixed Marriages Act’ (it prohibited marriage between people of different races), ‘The Group Areas Act’ (it forced people of certain races into living in designated areas). The Turn to Violence segment explores the activist organizations of the African National Congress and the Pan African Congress emergence as underground militant groups following the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, The Homelands and The Truth and Reconcilliation Commission.
On the other side of the turnstile entrances, there are two dark pathways bordered by wire cages displaying the magnified replicas of identity documents that classed Africans and Europeans respecively under the gaze of Apartheid.
Probably the most harrowing of exhbitiions on display is the noose installation which is a symbolic representation for those who were politically executed. The intention here is to not just to depict history, but to invoke empathy. This is in line with the contemporary direction many museums have taken in deepening visitor’ perspective through emotions as opposed to stringent fact-based narratives.
One can gather that the museum’s objective for referring to the violent nature of the Apartheid regime in a conceptul manner is significant in educating the youth of South Africa. Williams notes that child focussed exhibitions tend to abstract the nature of violence. Williams contends that through this abstraction there often often tends to be an undermining of the role perpetrators, but this is not evident in the Apartheid Museum who makes use of several abstract installations, as the political ideologies that framed the regime are ubiquitous throughout.
There are twenty-two installations and sculptures interspersed both inside and outside. These permanent exhibitions are accompanied by a temporary exhibition space that’s subject matter is always relevant to the Apartheid Era. Themes and concepts have been propounded by artists writers, and notable movements such as the female empowerment space and segregation in the United States. I was fortunate enough to attend panel discussion ‘The Black Body: (Still) a Site of Oppression?’. Exploring what it means to live in a black body. one that has been and still is under attack, whether from racist cops, or institutionally racist educational, corporate and other spaces.
All museums, generally speaking, make provisions in educating not only tourists visiting the country but also its own citizens. The Apartheid Museum strives to reach two groups. First, those who visit out of their own inclination to gain knowledge of a significant chapter in history in a cultural setting and secondly, the youth of South Africa often referred to as as the ‘born free generation’ who tend to visit on school tours, influenced by their elders, teachers and politicians to gain an in depth understanding of the historical journey their country has endured and how that in turn has shaped their modern society. Rather than acting as a reconciliation centre for those who survived Apartheid, the museum’s intention is to broaden the horizons of generations who did not live through apartheid and inititiate a discourse on its full history.
The Museum officially opened in November of 2001, seven years after South Africa’s first democratic elections were held and Nelson Mandela was appointed its first black president. The museum was not conceptualized by the ANC government, but funded by businessmen Solly and Abe Krok as apart of a ‘social responsibility’ requirement in trying to secure the rights for a casino and amusement park, which are situated next to the museum.
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