From June to 9th July, the District Six Home Coming Centre hosted the 'Salon Afrique: A Homecoming Reimagined' Exhibition in Cape Town, curated by Beathur Mgoza Baker and Sara Bint Moneer Khan; which was presented as an experimental visual exploration of an immersive salon of contemporary art and heritage.
The Pan-African exhibition featured work by 35 artists from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo Congo, Ethiopia and Zambia, and sought to negate cultural invisibility and silencing; and was inspired by the legacy of District Six as a place of memory and convergence where diverse cultures could coexist and truly belong. Furthermore, the exhibition and its complimentary cultural programme explored themes of visibility, a safe passage and creating a homecoming away from home that welcomes diverse identities from across Africa to commune and coexist under one roof, in Cape Town.
Highlight 1: Plates - Memories Through Food
This piece depicts stories about dishes former residents of District Six had while they lived in the historical District Six. More like stories captured through food.
Highlight 2: The Phased out Generation
All the people captured in this piece of art are dead. Meaning, either all their stories from District Six ended with them or they passed them on orally and archived them for their descendants and the community at large.
Highlight 3: Diversity of District Six
For some unknown reason, there's a way District Six is synonymous with the muslim community only. However, contrary to this popular belief, they were a highly diverse community; a melting pot of cultures and races and religions: Blacks, Europeans, Indians etc, all lived together in this community. Yet, it is often depicted as a strictly muslim community. This narrative is a kind reminder of why we should question who writes our history and evaluate what they write, because in the words of the legendary Miriam Makeba, "The conqueror writes history. They came, they conquered, and they wrote. Now you don't expect people who came to invade us to write the truth about us."
Their diversity indeed threatened the apartheid government, hence divide and rule in the form of the ever-so problematic spatial planning that still exists in present-day South Africa.
