Commemorating the past in the urban present: Living heritage on Constitution Hill/Johannesburg

ABSTRACT

Located in the centre of Johannesburg, Constitution Hill represents a distinctive memorial site that commemorates the experiences of male and female prisoners with the state-sponsored violence of apartheid. As part of a larger urban development, Constitution Hill juxtaposes the heritage installations in the three former prison buildings with the new Constitutional Court, the Commission for Gender Equality, as well as some commercial and rental space. The hybridity of the site reflects the curators’ emphasis on living heritage, on remembering the past in response to the needs of the present. Such a multifunctional space of commemoration, political activism, and urban rehabilitation has to navigate competing interests: ideally serving as a campus for human rights, while also requiring the temporary closure of the permanent exhibitions when the venue is used to host other events. Based on extensive archival research and repeated visits to the Women’s Jail between 2013 and 2016, I argue that this urban memorial museum is shaped by often conflicting demands which undermine the objectives of the curators and former detainees who had wanted to expand the archive of apartheid experiences and render visible women’s unique responses to institutionalised racism and its insidious infiltration of everyday life.

KEYWORDS:

• Constitution Hill
• Johannesburg
• Deborah Matshoba
• Barbara Hogan
• Women’s Jail
• memorial museum
• living heritage
• witnessing
• apartheid prison
• Marikana

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lauren Segal, former lead consultant for the curatorial team, and Debora Matthews, Geraldine Frieslaar and the amazing staff at SAHA for providing access to the workshop transcripts and related materials. I am also grateful for the support provided by Petal Thring, former CEO of Constitution Hill; Dawn Robertson, current CEO; Ann-Young van Wyk, former exhibition coordinator; as well as Constitution Hill staff, most notably Lorraine Mhlari and Lorraine Majola, Lerato Sefume, Thabo Madisa, and Reuben Pasha. My deepest gratitude extends to the members of Sizoya Sibuye, in particular Cecilie Palmer, Joyce Dipale, Yvonne Mhauli, and Palesa Musa. A final thank you to my colleagues at the University of the Witwatersrand, especially Michael Titlestad, for their generous support of my work, and to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Research on Constitution Hill was made possible by an Arts and Humanities Initiative Grant (Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development) as well as an International Programs Summer Research Fellowship (Office of the Provost) from the University of Iowa.

Note on Contributor

Marie Kruger is associate professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches classes in postcolonial and gender studies. Her monograph, Women’s Literature in Kenya and Uganda: The Trouble with Modernity, draws attention to fictional works that constitute a vital, yet often overlooked part of the cultural and creative exchanges in Eastern Africa. Together with Mildred Mortimer and Maureen Eke, she co-edited a special issue of Research in African Literatures on “Memory/History, Violence and Reconciliation.”

ORCID

Marie Kruger http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1972-4450

Notes

1 The curators of the permanent exhibitions emphasised their vision of Constitution Hill as ‘living heritage’ in several exhibition briefs. See, for example, Heritage Education Tourism (HET) Team n.d. [1] and Bester (2003). On the notion of living heritage see also South Africa’s NHRA.

2. The workshops with former prisoners started in 2002 when the first temporary exhibitions were opened on Constitution Hill and continued into 2003 and 2004; additional workshops were held in 2006 for an exhibition titled Mapping Memory (2006). I will refer mainly to workshops conducted with former female prisoners in 2004, which resulted in the opening of the permanent exhibitions at the Women’s Jail. See the references for a complete list of workshop transcripts considered in this article.

3. For a general history of the prison complex see Lauren Segal (2006), Sarah Longair (2013), and Michael Welsh (2015). For specific studies of the Women’s Jail, see Annie Coombes (2010 & 2011) as well as JoAnn Faber McAlister (2013).

4. ‘To create a living heritage site, a place where people could come and visit to learn about the country’s past, to celebrate the achievements of the new democracy and to engage the public in the creation of a new order through a public participation programme of dialogue and debate’ (HET Team n.d. [1]).

5. See also Nic Coetzer (2012) on the design of narrative spaces in three postapartheid museums.

6. See also Timothy Longman & Théoneste Rutagengwa (2006) on commemorative practices in Rwanda.

7. See exhibition panel, ‘Shopping Bag’ at the Women’s Jail.

8. For general information on the prison population and conditions in the jail, especially overcrowding and its impact on prisoners’ health, see K. Mooney (2014), Coombes (2010: 97), and Welsh (2015: 214–21). The historical background information available to tour guides at Constitution Hill explains that the prison complex served as a temporary detention centre during major political crises. As a result, overcrowding became systemic, especially from the late 1920s onwards (Chronology n.d.).

9. OMM Design Workshop/Urban Solutions based in Durban (Le Roux 2004: 39); see also Segal (2006: 77–94).

10. On the branding of the site as ‘a campus for human rights’ and ‘the history of our future’, see HET Team (2002) and Elizabeth Delmont (2004: 33).

11. The commissions include the CGE and other commissions supporting democratic governance (also known as Chapter Nine Institutions after the chapter in the constitution that led to their establishment). In a controversial decision, the Old Fort gained National Monument status in 1964 (Longair 2013: 114). Only recently (March 2017) has the entire site been recognised as a National Heritage Site.

12. See Segal (2006) on the survey of Hillbrow residents; recent activities on Constitution Hill include an upscale monthly crafts market and the Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival.

13. Lekgotla means ‘public gathering’ or ‘meeting place’ in Sesotho and Setswana (Madikida, Segal & van der Berg 2008: 19).

14. As recent examples, see the edited collections, Museums, Equality and Social Justice (Sandell & Nightingale 2012); Museum Making (Macleod, Hourston Hanks & Hale 2012); Museum as Process (Silverman 2012).

15. See also her critique of empathy as a preferred response to museum displays and the attendant notions of ‘postmemory’ or ‘prosthetic memory’.

16. See also Van der Merwe & Patel, who ‘examine the extent to which a narrative of justice is reflected in the physical design of the Constitution Hill precinct’ (2013: 119).

17. See, for example, Segal (2006: 115–6), Le Roux (2004), Delmont (2004: 32); these tropes are also discussed in HET Team n.d. [2].

18. See Delmont (2004), Longair (2013), and McAllister (2013) for a discussion of the NHRA, in particular the emphasis on sustainability and living heritages.

19. The Constitution Hill management does not keep statistical data on the use of the rental venues.

20. Petal Thring, interview with author in Johannesburg (19 March 2013).

21. The new exhibition space will house the Museum and Archive of the Constitution at the Hill (MARCH).

22. Dawn Robertson, interview with author in Johannesburg (20 July 2016).

23. I am excluding from consideration single monuments (Women’s Monument in Pretoria) or smaller memorial tributes to individual women, such as the memorial to Lilian Ngoyi outside her house in Soweto (Segal & Holden 2008: 112).

24. See, for example, the work of Fiona Ross (2003) & Coombes (2010 & 2011).

25. See Mooney (2014) and her discussion of archival sources about the Women’s Jail.

26. See transcripts of workshops conducted by the Oral History Workshop (OHW) with female ex-prisoners from 13 August, 10 September, 13 October & 8 December 2004 (OHW 2004a, b, c & d).

27. See Patrizia Violi on trauma sites that ‘exist factually as material testimonies of the violence and horror that took place there’ (2012: 37). On the notion of ‘the vast imaginative space’ that separates those who experience trauma from those who listen to their testimonies, see Lawrence Langer (1991: 19).

28. See also the slide on the politics of the workshops: ‘[We] [u]sed the body as a way of defining our focus – the sights, sounds, smells, tastes of prison life, the indignities’ (HET Team n.d. [1]).

29. See exhibition panel titled ‘Approach to Conservation, Preservation and Restoration’.

30. See also the discussion of the exhibitions by McAllister (2013) and Coombes (2010 & 2011).

31. See also HET Team, ‘The shack is now represented and commemorated by this red structure to evoke our imaginations’ (n.d. [2]: n.p.).

32. See Violi (2012) on the use of specific strategies in memorial museums to elicit an emotional response from the visitor.

33. See also McAllister (2013) on the extent to which the exhibitions shift from a collective critique of the prison system to its specific impact on the bodies of women.

34. On a similar reading of the display, see also Coombes (2011).

35. I am indebted to Arnold-de Simine for her comparative discussion of LaCapra and Butler.