The Ruins of Cape Town’s District Six

Two-dimensional engagements: photography, empathy and interpretation at District Six Museum

“…Stimulated by the President's announcement earlier that year that applications to the Land Claims Commission would be re-opened, the activists were protesting their historic exclusion from District Six's restitution process.. The re-opening of the claims process means that the work of District Six Museum as an imaginative and reconstructive project is now more important than ever, particularly since the bitter removal of the District Six Beneficiary Trust from the negotiating process (Ernsten 2015). As such, the ability of District Six Museum to communicate its vision to a broader international audience, and turn these audiences into potential stakeholders in its vision, is also becoming increasingly important, especially considering that there are now more international tour groups visiting the Museum, than local and national educational groups (District Six Annual Report, 2014).…”

“…These proceedings have not been without controversy however, and debates over entitlement to restitution are ongoing. For more on this see: Ernsten, 2015;Beyers, 2010;Beyers, 2007…”

“…At first the Museum's proprietorial 'community' seems self-evident, as the family photographs adorning its walls attest to a diverse grouping of (largely) non-white Capetonians, brought together through the axis of poverty, shared space and culture. Indeed, the curators go some way to reinforcing this image, as particular attention is paid to spaces and places that have universal significance for District Sixers, such as the famous commercial However as District Six's mythology has grown, and possibilities of returning to its land have become reality, a number of frictions have emerged between ex-residents who share the Museum's vision for a redefined, non-lineal District, and a different set of stakeholders, whose demands for an alternative, more exclusive future for the land, rejects the Museum, and its concept of community altogether (Ernsten 2015).…”

“…From its initial failure to appeal to governmental funders, through to current debates surrounding the right of the indigenous Khoisan and San people to District Six's land (Ernsten 2015), critical non-racialism has proven difficult to negotiate for the Museum's organisers. Most difficult to shift, however, have been the accusations that the Museum is an active perpetuator of the mythology of District Six as 'ethnic homeland' and birthplace of the coloured population in South Africa (Wicomb 1998: 94) Until the late 1990s, 'Coloured' as a racialised form of identification was regarded with deep cynicism by many activists and intellectuals in South Africa.…”