See is a transnational project which brings together cities, institutions, activists, artists, designers, and other creatives to exchange ideas, debate and develop methodologies to bring about representational equity in the public life of our cities. It draws on emergent transnational solidarity and coalition strategies to fashion more equitable urban futures in the aftermath of colonialism, slavery and apartheid.
Focused on the city of Cape Town, South Africa, a core intention of See is to move scholarly information in archives and museums, and dialogues that have emerged out of recent social justice struggles, into the mainstream. This is important, so that all people may see themselves in the making of the city, past and present, and be encouraged to contribute to positive future making, and in their own image. A second core intention is to recover the idea of Cape Town as a hybrid city. In colonised cities across the world, extensive work went into preparing a tabula rasa or blank slate, ‘cleansing’ public space of time and history so that the colonisers could construct their own orders, references and visual cultures. We need to make the shift from the outdated fixity of the colonial city, which is diminishing and damaging, to a more resilient, agile and adaptable hybrid city based on mixedness and mixing. Outdated ideologies of racial purity and uniqueness are a toxic dead end. Our strength lies not only in diversity but also in transgressive hybridity.
See aims to widen the scope and range of our knowledge about the contributions that various individuals and visionary groups of people have made to the texture of Cape Town’s urban life. Through doing so, it aims to wrestle Cape Town’s hybrid spirit from apartheid’s enduring spatial legacies. The project is driven by an endeavour to document and disseminate marginalised histories and memories, to widen the scope of our thinking about the city, and open out to more inclusive futures.
We want to share information about who contemporary Capetonians are and where they come from so that we can meet each other in a place of greater respect and knowing. We need to remember diverse pasts and recall heterodox inheritances, understanding that no single narrative constitutes the truth of our shared and separate histories.
While focused on Cape Town, See offers insights for global discussions on contested urban histories, and the construction of resilient postcolonial spaces and identities. The project works with a number of partner cities and institutions, looking to those that have challenges with contested urban histories and those that have successfully integrated representative symbols into their landscapes, literature and teachings.
History
It is impossible to make integrated, inclusive cities of the future without openly and honestly engaging with the histories that inform each place.
Between 2003 and 2006, various construction projects in Green Point, Cape Town unearthed human remains. It turned out to be a profound transformational moment. These were the remains of over 3000 mainly enslaved people from the colonial period left in unmarked graves, silent for centuries. Suddenly, they argued against the historical record, contradicted the colonial archive, and encouraged us all to embrace a broader understanding of the Cape. For academic Christian Ernsten:
‘The resurfacing of the dead challenges the trope of national unity and alerts us to the failure of urban transformation. Yet, these instances also allow for new ways of following the Cape ancestors and new ways of transforming the colonial archive.’
In truth, much of our history remains hidden, buried, unseen. It is our task to find what we can, searching beyond textbooks and biased political propaganda. What can the remains and ruins of our ancestors reveal? What can oral histories tell us?
Memory
How do we remember the past? In part, it is by way of architecture, design, art, placemaking, walks, rituals and ceremonies. But, in Cape Town, there is a distorted memory – reflecting the historical imbalance of value placed on its peoples. Colonial narratives – indeed, myths – are often overpowering; opposing efforts to rescript the urban environment. This is a moment for all voices to be heard, and all people to be seen. As archaeology professor Nick Shepherd writes:
‘In refusing to face history, we are condemned; not to repeat it, but to remain entrapped by its terms. We remain blighted by stale binaries, dead-end subjectivities and banal iconography of apartheid. Each morning we wake up to say the same things, repeat the same arguments and experience the same slights as we bump up against the edges of our ‘whiteness’ and ‘blackness’, like victims of a cosmic Groundhog Day. Breaking the charm requires a powerful work of imagination.’
Making place
As citizens, we need to design our own, everyday spatial, social and cultural visibility. And we need to define this outside the strictures of colonialism and apartheid. See will examine the intense and complex mechanisms required to shape democratic cultural representations in Cape Town. This will include informed perspectives that speak to the diversity, textures and contestations of the hybrid city. Says architect Sir David Adjaye:
‘Cultural figures that are ubiquitously celebrated as enhancing or forming a part of the democracy need to be celebrated in public space and this is part of the visual memory of a community. Historical objects are about reframing. The ones that are not agreed upon or are difficult should be in museums. It is not about forgetting or erasing, but it is about learning. The public realm is about celebrating common democracies rather than privileged ones.’
