Sculpture of Resistance: Symbolic Reparations in Post-Apartheid Art in District Six, Cape Town

This essay outlines public art in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa and how public art can manifest itself to reconstruct cultural memory, provide a space for healing and processing collective trauma, and produce critical public pedagogy. Public art also has the power to provide symbolic reparations, an approach proposed by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee but one that I believe was not properly or effectively handled by the South African government. In this paper I will cover two specific public art projects and one established museum, all three framed within the context of both institutionalized and individual approaches to public art. Such projects extend to the District Six Museum, the Public Arts Festival of 1997, and the Black Arts Collective visual-media project, ‘Returning the Gaze.’ This paper proposes that the concept of public art should be reconsidered; I argue that its purpose is not to solely beautify urban landscapes, but rather to provide platforms for survivors of abuse to relay their experiences, influence popular discourse, and challenge hegemonic notions of race, identity, and culture.