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wear and tear. noun. the loss or damage that occur

wear and tear. noun. the loss or damage that occurs to something in the course of normal use

30 years of #democracy and 30 years of the District Six Museum was celebrated with the #exhibition Wear and Tear: on the fabric and fabrication of freedom #curated by @bonita_bee_ and @a.yes.ha_ The exhibition opened today @homecomingcentre and features a #collaboration between 8 South African #artists who explore what 30 years of freedom means to them.

T-shirts featuring the work of each artist were produced and given to visitors to change into on entry.

Until 30 May 2024.

Participating artists:
@kikisbylin Lindsay Petersen
@donovan_ward_art Donovan Ward
@hugokanyingukabeya Hugo Kabeya
@goldendean_art Dean Hutton
@miningoyi Minenkulu Ngoyi
@levy_pooe LevyPooe
@imanzanele Iman Omar
& Randy Hartzenberg

#art #districtsix #districtsixmuseum #capetown #wearandtear #southafrica #freedom

Pilgrimage is almost universally embedded in human

Pilgrimage is almost universally embedded in human culture as a literal means of #spiritual journey, says @rebeccasolnit Labyrinths, an ancient archetype dating back more than 4 000 years, can be used symbolically as a #pilgrimage.

I'm continuing to experiment with the #shells I gathered from St James Beach during our walk with @multispecies_stories and have incorporated them into a #labyrinth @clayhands. As a right-brain activity, walking a labyrinth encourages the walker's #creative and #intuitive side and evokes a #sacred space.

Perhaps, if we tap into this, we may see ourselves as part of a bigger picture, to look at #nature through a more-than-human lens where we are but one of the players. If we see how integrally we are #connected to each other and the #environment, will we cease destroying each other? Daring to #hope with all the people who continue to show up in #community...

#morethanhuman #multispecies #multispeciesstories #multispeciesstorytelling #stjamesbeach #walking #culture #humanculture #clayhands #pottery #claywork

I was in search of a comfort #read when I found Li

I was in search of a comfort #read when I found Libby Page's latest #novel, The Vintage Shop, centred around the yellow dress that takes pride of place in the #vintage shop opened by a young woman after her mother dies. The Times described it as "hot-buttered-toast-and-tea fiction," and that's exactly what I had with it while I lingered in my bed last Sunday morning.

Because so much of my #writing is around kept objects, I loved the #connections and #relationships that spread out from the #dress ... stories woven into the #stitches made by hand and passed down from one #generation to the next. And I can't help thinking about the devastation of having your home destroyed and, with it, the very ordinary objects that hold the #stories for your children and grandchildren of those who came before.

#libbypage #thevintageshop #orionbooks #keptobjects #reading #books

The first date my father took my mother on was to

The first date my father took my mother on was to see #Trapeze at the Avalon #bioscope in District Six. It was the 4pm show because she wasn't allowed to go out at night. I wonder if his love for #gymnastics influenced the #film choice, but it was probably the only movie on offer.

My father was studying at Wesley Training College when these #photos were taken. My mother says that the Wesley #gym team had a reputation for their daring physical displays and were called the "Suicide Squad". My father wrote the names of the #team on the back of the photo along with their nicknames in brackets. Names like Ou Boet, Whitey, Honger and my father's #nickname, Rebel. I haven't quite reconciled that part of him with his #schoolteacher persona!

My father would have been 89 today. I treaure being able to flip through these #photographs and access the #memories they hold.

##familyphotographs #familyalbum #capetown #southafrica #wesleytrainingcollege #avalonbioscope #districtsix #tellingourstories #heritage

"Your job is to bind books, not read them," Peggy

"Your job is to bind books, not read them," Peggy Jones is reminded often by her supervisor at the #bindery for Oxford University Press. She dreams of studying, but #Jericho is strictly divided into the 'Gowns' (the upper classes allowed to attend the university) and 'Towns' (the working class residents of the town). Her station in life is to fold the #books with the precious words that others will read. The author gives a lyrical account of the #bookmaking process.

WWI, the "Great War", the "war to end all wars", is the backdrop to this well-researched book, and the #brutality of #war seeps into the story at every turn, and I can't help thinking constantly about the ongoing horror we have been #witnessing for the last 172 days.

This bit is stuck in my head. When asked about a family friend who is volunteering as a nurse aid on the front, Peggy replies,

"Of course [she is safe], not even the Germans would drop bombs on a hospital."

The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams is published by Chatto and Windus, an imprint of Vintage, Penguin Random House UK

#bookbinding #thebookbinderofjericho #pipwilliams #books #oxforduniversitypress #ceasefirenow #permanentceasefire

I've been playing with shells I gathered on St Jam

I've been playing with shells I gathered on St James's Beach on a recent walk with @multispecies_stories After I pressed them into clay, they were fired @clayhands The heat has bleached the shells and they crumble and disintegrate to the touch. Some of them have popped off the slab but have left an imprint and discolouration - like a #scar, a reminder of what was once there and is now lost.

Shells as mollusc exoskeletons are protectors of #life. A #shell can also destroy life, as in a #bomb, and, to bombard with shells. And a shell as in the walls of a #gutted building. How closely life and death are intertwined. Will the #land from the river to the sea be marked indelibly? Will it remember its people when they #return? Will man destroy the earth's memory?

It's Human Rights Day in South Africa and we remember those who lost their lives in the struggle for #freedom and we remember, in Mandela's words, that to deny people their human rights is to challenge their very #humanity. All people. 🇵🇸🇿🇦🇨🇩🇸🇩

#humanrights #humanrightsday #stjamesbeach #Nelson mandela #@multispeciesstories #sea #ocean #coast #walking #ceasefirenow ##freepalestine

A #walkabout with Molly Anderson through her #exhi

A #walkabout with Molly Anderson through her #exhibition, Texturing Absences, at the Spin Street Gallery. Molly grew up in #Woodstock and explored the erasure of the beach while completing her masters thesis. In this exhibition, she traces the absences of Woodstock Beach using found objects, #memories, archival maps, and #photographs, investigating layers of colonial displacement, #slavery, #apartheid. The beach was the final resting place of many enslaved people, soldiers, and indentured labourers who died in the 100+ shipwrecks on its shores.

"Woodstock Beach existed in various forms up until the 1960s, having been progressively 'pushed back' since the early 1850s. It was a beach for fishing, kite flying, baptisms, and bathing. There are black-and-white pictures of children building sandcastles, Victorian bathing houses on wheels, and fishing boats coming ashore."

The exhibition is on until 15 March.

#history #heritage #woodstockbeach #capetown #southafrica #texturingabsences #foundobjects #archives #archivalmaps #displacement

My grandmother's #medorah, the #scarf she wore on

My grandmother's #medorah, the #scarf she wore on her return from her #hajj, or #pilgrimage, to Mecca, features strongly in my writing, so this work, Medora with Orchids by Whaleed Ahjum, strikes a deep chord.

The medorah, fashioned into bridal #headpieces, is reminiscent of the golden headgears of #Balinese royalty and directly references a history of #Dutch #slavery and #colonialism. They chronicle an alternative history to challenge the dominant narrative.

Image 2, 3 & 4: family weddings with brides wearing the medorah
Image 4: detail from my grandmother's medorah on the inside cover of my book

A Glimpse between Memoirs is an #exhibition of the work of Ahjum @wolfeconcepts and Shaunez Benting @shaunezbentingart

The exhibition is curated by @ourcapetownheritage and is on at the @bokaapculturalhub until 10 March.

#art #history #heritage #capetown #southafrica #whaleedahjum #memoir #shaunezbentingart ##offcentreandoutoffocus #tellingourstories #medorawithorchids

One of the trees outside St George's Cathedral has

One of the trees outside St George's Cathedral has been standing #vigil in between the weekly gatherings. When the nearby trees were wrapped in red fabric and tinsel for Christmas, ‘our’ tree was given its own identity with bands of green, black, and white mirroring the colours of the #Palestinian flag. A week later, it had been completely stripped. The tree was ‘dressed’ again at the next vigil. Later “birds of Gaza” made by children during the school holidays with the names of Palestinian children who had been killed were pinned to the tree. This, too, was removed. The tree has now been stripped four times, all under cover of darkness.

When I wrote my last piece for @reclamationmagazine, I had just been to a protest march in Cape Town. I was actively collecting what I called “pebbles of hope”, hoping that our shared humanity would bring an end to the merciless killing of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children. I didn’t imagine that three months later I would have marched many more times, or that the weekly vigil on the steps of St George’s Cathedral that started on 11 October, would become a regular event. Nor did I imagine that I would be attending a vigil on the same steps for the more than 117 #journalists killed in the line of duty. Or perhaps I did but hoped that somehow the world would show up and #humanity would triumph.

Read more @reclamationmagazine

#Palestine #hope #stgeorgescathedral #vigil #solidarity #reclamationmagazine ##birdsofgaza

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2021 Nadia Kamies. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Volt Africa. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy

ABOUT NADIA KAMIES

Nadia Kamies was born and raised in Cape Town. She holds a BSc Occupational Therapy and an MA Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town, and a PhD History from the University of Pretoria. Her writing focuses on the afterlives of slavery and apartheid.

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