by Susan | Feb 3, 2020 | Monuments
On 26 June 1955, more than 3,000 representatives of resistance organizations made their way through police cordons to gather on a dusty square in Kliptown, 40 kilometers south of Johannesburg. This “Congress of the People” met to draw up the Freedom Charter, an...
by Susan | Apr 29, 2019 | Monuments
Memorial to the Six Million in Johannesburg’s Westpark Cemetery pays tribute to the Jewish men, women and children who lost their lives during the Second World War. The monument depicts six bronze fists, each five feet high, bursting out of the ground as a protest...
by Susan | Nov 6, 2017 | Monuments
This monument recalls the brutal murder of seven young black activists by South African security forces in 1986. The young men were on their way to what they believed to be a job interview in a minivan driven by an undercover security officer, when they stopped at a...
by Susan | Jun 12, 2017 | Monuments
In 2014 a giant pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers appeared on Cape Town’s Sea Point Promenade, pointed towards Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 of his 27 years as a prisoner. The artist, Michael Elion, pitched it as a public art installation;...
by Susan | Jun 6, 2016 | Monuments
The events of the night of 7 June 1893 changed the course of Mahatma Gandhi’s life. The young Indian lawyer had come to South Africa for work. He was traveling from Durban to Johannesburg and had a first class ticket for the train. He was told to leave the...