Arts + Culture
The Archive of Forgetfulness

Review: An Online Exhibition Highlights The Limits Of Memory


The Archive of Forgetfulnessis an exhibition dedicated to remembering both our personal and collective histories.

Cheriese Diljrah'sExistence is An Occupationis a six-minute video installation that starts with the artist creating a paper jet to the sound of Miriam Makeba's "A Piece of Ground". "When the white man first came here from over the seas. He looked and he said, this is God's own country. He was mighty well pleased with this land that he'd found and he said, 'I will make here my own piece of ground,'" sings Makeba. The song sets the emotional tenor of Diljrah's piece, which compares the state violence in occupied Palestine with the forced removals enforced by the City of Cape Town. The video ends with her asking: Can people be illegal invaders in their own country or continent?

The video is a commentary on the circular nature of colonial history — how it's bound to repeat itself — and the inextricable link between the past and the present. Bubbling beneath the images of forced demolitions and her poetic spoken word piece about a mother cradling her child through a forced eviction, is a simple question: Why do we seem to forget the past when it informs so much of our present social realities?

Diljrah's piece is one of hundreds that makes up The Archive of Forgetfulness, an online exhibition that interrogates the failure of memory and the histories of racial violence and forced segregation. The exhibition, funded by the Goethe Institute, compiles essays, podcasts and visual art from artists across the continent to tell personal and collective stories about our different histories.

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Image by Ray Manzana

The House That Kid Fonque Built

Renowned DJ and Stay True Sounds owner Kid Fonque on living his truth through his record label Stay True Sounds, rooting for underground producers and proudest career moments.

Kid Fonque is buoyant. The Johannesburg-based DJ and record label owner is decked in an all-black tracksuit with white kicks. It's a placid Sunday afternoon in Melville and we meet up at Lonely Hearts Club, Melville - a dimly lit windowless space in the nerve centre of the bohemian suburb. Out back, there's a cozy outside area with stained glass and shrubbery made ten times more appealing by the streaks of slow moving winter clouds above us. But too many people want to dap Kid Fonque down — he'd been playing a set two days back — so conducting the interview here might be a nightmare. He motions for us to go inside. "I think it'll be quieter here," he offers.

The lanky Scottish-born, South African-raised DJ is preparing for the rollout of Stay True Sounds 100, the 100th release from his young, indie record label Stay True Sounds. "I've been working on the rollout of Stay True Sounds 100 for the last couple of months," he begins. "I roped in China Charmeleon and I've been for about the last six months. He's remixed 13 Stay True Sounds catalogue artists and so our 100th release is 'China Chameleon remixes Stay True Sounds'".

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