The popular Friends of the Library Lecture series is back.
The 2022 series begins on Thursday 31 March 2022 with a talk by Jeff Peires entitled, “Pride or Prejudice? Updating the memory of the 1820 Settlers”.
It’s more than 200 years since the 1820 settlers arrived, but nobody seems to want to talk about them. This talk hopes to provide a factual basis for beginning the conversation.
When: Thursday 31 March 2022
Where: Amazwi South African Museum of Literature, 25A Worcester St, Grahamstown, Makhanda
Time: 5.15 pm for 5.30 pm
All are welcome, but please note that attendees must be vaccinated and wear masks. Temperatures will be taken at the door.
Entry is by donation in aid of the Friends of the Grahamstown Public Libraries – Hill Street, Duna, Fingo Village, Community, Alicedale, Riebeek East, Extension 9 and the Mobile Library.
Friends of the Library subs: the new subscription period will be from AGM to AGM meetings. Payments (R 50 per member or R 300 for a lifetime subscription) can be made any time during this period, via EFT or to Ian Macdonald at the FOL lectures.
Making way
The photographs below were taken of a 2012 art performance Making Way by Doung Anwar Jahangeer, on the grounds of the 1820 Settlers National Monument, Grahamstown, curated by Ruth Simbao.
Jahangeer painted the hands and faces of the figures in the Settler Family, a statue of a British Settler mother, father and child produced by artist Ivan Mitford-Barberton in 1969. Donning a top hat, the father clutches an enormous Bible. The trio is elevated on a large stone pedestal, making the figures visible to drivers along the N2 highway that passes Makhanda.
Jahangeer said he attempted to ‘Africanise’ the Settlers in a restorative gesture. Using clay from the earth, he symbolically brings them closer to the ground, questioning the role of the pedestal in its attempt to exalt the British Settlers. While a few residents complained about the ‘defacing’ of the Settler Family, Jahangeer argues that his gesture was “a way of welcoming history into the present in a more ritualistically peaceful manner rather than in an angry way of saying we have to take down those historic iconic monuments”.
“This ritual is to welcome the Settler family home,” he said.
(Excerpt from ‘Walking The Other Side: Doung Anwar Jahangeer’ by Ruth Simbao in Third Text 27:3).
