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UNCONQUERABLE SPIRIT: GEORGE STOW AND THE ROCK ART OF THE SAN
8 NOVEMBER 2008 - FEBRUARY 2009
George Stow was a Victorian man of many parts – poet, historian,
ethnographer, artist, cartographer and prolific writer. A geologist by
profession, he became acquainted, through his work in the field, with
the extraordinary wealth of rock paintings in the caves and shelters
of the South African interior. Enchanted and absorbed by them, Stow
set out to create a record of this creative work of the people who had
tracked and marked the South African landscape decades and centuries
before him. Stow’s paintings are interpretations of the art of the
San, informed by his own understanding of a particularly turbulent
time in South African history and his sense of the tragic demise of
the San way of life. This exhibition celebrates his pioneering
achievement and reminds us, too, of the richness of the imaginative
universe of the San.
A collection of his interpretations of rock art, a selection of his
geological maps, documents and field notebooks, some of
his poetic works, quotations from his writings on the San and their
history as he recorded and interpreted it, as well as some contextual
material from the Bleek and Lloyd archive are displayed. The
exhibition brings together works from the Iziko South African Museum,
the National Library of South Africa and the of Cape Town (UCT). It is
curated by Pippa Skotnes and her team at the Centre for Curating the
Archive, Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT. A new publication on Stow
will be launched at the exhibition.
Enquiries: Petro Keene, Tel. 021 481 3883, or email
pkeene@iziko.org.za.
/QE - THE POWER OF ROCK ART
CURRENT
This exhibition presents
a visual experience of the richly detailed knowledge and beliefs about
the spirit world, rain-making and healing that inspired the paintings
and engravings. The story is told from the perspective of the San
people whose ancestors created most of the art. The word ‘/Qe’ describes the power associated with God and the
supernatural in N/u, a San language of the Northern Cape spoken by
fewer than 20 people today. It was suggested for this exhibition by /Una
/Khasi-Rooi, her sister Antje /Khasi and other members of the N/u
community. Most of the quotations that illuminate the meaning of the
rock art in the exhibition are in /Xam, a San language closely related
to N/u but no longer spoken.
Rock art is found in many parts of Africa. The majority of rock
paintings and engravings found in southern Africa can be clearly
linked to San beliefs. Also, in this region, within the last 2000
years, engravings and finger-paintings were made by Khoekhoe herders
and African farmers.
AFRICAN CULTURES GALLERY
CURRENT
The present exhibition
in the African Cultures Gallery was installed in the early 1970s, and
was intended to show the essential features and patterns of material
culture among the various groupings of indigenous people in southern
Africa. These groupings were defined according to cultural and
linguistic criteria that were intended to enable the reconstruction of
social systems that no longer existed at that time, but this caused
the displays to present cultural patterns as if they were static and
timeless. Additions to the exhibition made during the 1980s and early
1990s, such as the display of a Nama camp, sought to counter this
impression by incorporating a historical dimension. Though the
exhibition does not represent the ways of life of contemporary rural
and urban South Africans, it shows the vital role played by
traditional knowledge of natural resources and their utilization in
the past by the indigenous inhabitants of southern Africa.
The famous but controversial diorama of 19th-century /Xam
hunter-gatherers in the Karoo region of the Western Cape is closed to
the public pending a decision on its future to be taken after
consultation with representatives of indigenous South African people
and other stake-holders.
ULWAZI LWEMVELO - INDIGENOUS
KNOWLEDGE IN SOUTH AFRICA
CURRENT
Indigenous knowledge is
an important part of every South African’s cultural heritage.
Indigenous knowledge refers to traditional knowledge that is handed on
from generation to generation in communities. This exhibition is a
window on indigenous ways of using natural resources in daily life and
on ceremonial occasions, and it also provides a focus for current
research and debate on intellectual property rights.
For a more comprehensive list of exhibitions see
social history exhibitions. | 
