Category: 16 Days

DAY TEN: Picturing Violence Unseen

Image above: FGM Campaigner Fatou Baldeh (Scotland-Gambia)by Alicia Bruce. Reproduced by permission of Zero Tolerance

Alicia Bruce with Fatou Baldeh

I was the photographer for Zero Tolerance ‘Violence Unseen’ campaign: a photography exhibition to put unacknowledged and often unseen forms of violence against women on the map. It was launched in 2018, 25 years after the original iconic Zero Tolerance campaign[1], shot by the late Franki Raffles. 

The original Zero Tolerance campaign was a ground breaking Scottish public awareness initiative in the 1990s which challenged social attitudes, stereotypes and myths using powerful images and slogans. The campaign had a far-reaching impact across the rest of the UK and internationally.

Taking on this commission was important personally and professionally for me as a working-class Scottish woman, as the mother of a young daughter, as a photographer and as a campaigner. Violence against women and girls is not a private domestic matter, it’s a human rights issue. Women are attacked verbally, physically, professionally at all levels, in person and online, both directly and indirectly. Ending violence against women should be everyone’s priority. Complacency on this issue is an endorsement.  

Over the past decades there have been dramatic changes to public attitudes around some aspects of men’s violence against women. Yet domestic abuse, sexual violence and other forms of violence against women are still prevalent in Scotland today, especially for groups of women who face other forms of discrimination; women with learning disabilities, women who sell sex, lesbian, bisexual and trans (LBT) and black and minority ethnic women. In response to this, Zero Tolerance has created a new photography exhibition, Violence Unseen, to explore these types of violence against women that remain unseen and unacknowledged by mainstream society.  The exhibition was launched at Stills in September 2018 and has since been exhibited across Scotland in colleges, bus stations, an airport, government buildings and more.

The Violence Unseen Travelling Exhibition: Image reproduced by permission of Zero Tolerance and Alicia Bruce

Before making any images I worked closely in dialogue, research and collaboration with multiple partner organisations including the amazing Shakti Women’s Aid who put me in contact with Fatou Baldeh, a survivor and campaigner to end Female Genital Mutilation. I attended Shakti’s excellent and harrowing training on ‘Honour-based’ abuse.  

Violence Unseen Reimagined: Image of Fatou Baldeh by Alicia Bruce reproduced by permission of Zero Tolerance

My portrait with Fatou was made collaboratively in her flat in Edinburgh in 2017  where she lived at the time with her two young sons. The youngest was only three months old.  Having met for coffee a few weeks before and spoken on the phone I was already in awe of her. In the spirit of photographs made in the early 90s by feminist photographer Franki Raffles, my own personal remit for the new Zero Tolerance campaign was to show women’s strength, dignity and power. In my role as photographer I’m a conduit for the images I make with others. So instead of projecting too much of my own feelings or research I’ve reflected on the photograph of Fatou and would prefer to share her words reflecting back on the image we made together.

AB: In my photograph with you I see a grounded and strong mother, activist and professional who takes pride in herself and her boys. I see a deep and loving connection between you and your baby, a warm, loving home and someone comfortable in her own skin. What do you see symbolically in the photograph?   

FB: “That year was one of the most difficult years in my life. But that picture for me shows; I see a defiant woman who refuses to give up, who refuses to be defined by her experience. Holding my son up was me showing pride as a single mother with a career who faces challenges that so many other women are facing as well but refuses to give up.”

AB: The ‘She Believed She Could So She Did’ picture within our image was so personal to you but also universal. Can you tell me more about that framed text and what it means to you?

FB: “Those words where inspirational and motivating for me. They reminded me that no matter how difficult things get, if I believe that I can do them or get through them then I will.”

AB: How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your campaigning?

FB: Due to the pandemic it has been impossible to engage as many women and girls in realising their sexual and reproductive health and rights as I would have wanted to this year. A lot of our work is face to face with communities and the provision of safe spaces for women and girls. This has been severely affected due to Covid restrictions despite the fact that we saw a rise in incidents of SGBV.

AB: Your education in women’s health and in psychology empowered you to make social change, especially for Women’s Sexual Health and particularly for preventing FGM in Gambia. What has been the impact of this in Scotland, in Gambia and internationally?

FB: “I come from a society where many girls still do not have access to basic education. I also come from a family and society that practices FGM. Through education I became aware of the impact of harmful traditional practices and other forms of SGBV. This knowledge and understanding has motivated me to use my voice and platform to raise awareness of FGM and all forms of violence against women and girls. Through this I have the direct impact on protecting girls from harm but also inspiring other young women to join the fight against VAWG. I believe my work in Scotland contributed in putting a limelight on the fight against FGM and the provision of services tailored to survivors of FGM. In recognition of my work and support for migrant women in Scotland I was recently awarded an MBE by her Majesty the Queen.”

AB: If you could have a chat with seven year old Fatou now, what words of wisdom would you share with her?

FB “If I could advise Fatou at seven I would say: have big dreams, think big and go make the world a better and safer place for women and girls.”

AB: Since we met in 2017 you’ve achieved so much returning to Gambia. You have become a CEO of your own charity and received an MBE.  You are a legend!  What’s next?

FB: “I will continue to work for the safety and protection of the rights of women and girls and supporting young girls to realise their full sexual and reproductive health and rights.”

AB: If people reading this could do one thing to raise awareness on the prevention of FGM what should it be?

FB: “Continue breaking the silence around violence against women and girls. Make people aware that violations such as FGM continue to affect girls and hinder their full potential. Only if we continue challenging and fighting shall this harmful practice be abolished.”

Visit virtual exhibition here

An accessible version of the exhibition can be found here

Fatou Baldeh MBE is a Gambian-born activist involved in the campaign to end FGM. She has an MSc. in Sexual and Reproductive Health and was the FGM mapping and network coordinator at Waverley Care in Scotland and a Trustee for Dignity Alert & Research Forum (DARF). She experienced female genital mutilation at the age of seven. 

Shakti Women’s Aid is a Scottish charity that helps black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women, children, and young people experiencing, or who have experienced, domestic abuse from a partner, ex-partner, and/or other members of the household. Shakti provides training and consultancy for agencies working with BAME women, children, and young people.

Zero Tolerance is a Scottish charity working to end men’s violence against women by promoting gender equality and challenging attitudes that normalise violence and abuse. We work to end violence against women through tackling the root cause of this violence – gender inequality. Tweet @ZTScotland 

Alicia Bruce is an award-winning, working class Scottish photographer and educator.   Human rights, community collaboration and social justice are at the core of her artistic practice.  Alicia’s photographs have been exhibited and published internationally and are held in collections including the National Galleries of Scotland, St Andrews University and UK Parliament.  Her series ‘Menie: TRUMPED’ documents a resilient Scottish community who stood up to Donald Trump.  Her commissioned portfolio features campaigns for Project Ability, Zero Tolerance and Crisis. Awards include RSA Morton Award.    Bruce is a Teaching Fellow and Photography Tutor at University of Edinburgh and eca. 

Tweet @picturemaking

Instagram @aliciabrucephoto

[1] For background on the original campaign and its impact see Katie Cosgrove (2001) No Man Has the Right  and Fiona Mackay (2001) The Case of Zero Tolerance: Women’s Politics in Action? in E. Breitenbach and F. Mackay eds. Women and Contemporary Scottish Politics: An Anthology Polygon at Edinburgh. 

DAY TEN: ‘My pain became my beautiful testimony’: breaking the silence on the sexual abuse of girls

“There is great power in our voice.”
Nigerian author and activist Fatima Ishiaku turned her traumatic past into a memoir – and a beacon of hope for young girls like her.

Fatima Ishiaku

In our society, a lot of youthful and defenseless adolescents are victims of malicious rape. 

These streaks of sexual brutality affect them substantially, physically, psychologically and otherwise.

Such acts of violence and sexual harm turns into a route that contributes to so many other social vices and often a path to the self-destruction of these unprotected young girls if they don’t find help.

If these acts of brutality don’t get nipped in the bud, it will shatter the fabric of our society and the world at large.

Often, victims are forced and intimidated to stay mute in the face of a vicious series of violent rape. 

These threats and coercion makes it a struggle for victims to open up to anyone about such issues. And when victims finally open up, they get bullied by the people they confide in to tell their stories, an act that renders them psychologically and emotionally traumatized.

These adolescents end up getting impregnated by their rapists, a condition they find themselves unprepared for, bearing a child at an early age. Some opt for abortion and often die in the process.

For those that survive, it becomes a psychological disorder that makes these youthful and defenseless girls find comfort in alcohol, drugs, and other social vices. Some of them even end up as school dropouts due the effect of rape and the consequences become endless.

Victims most times are very vulnerable, rude, disrespectful, and aggressive. Because of what they’ve been through their lives becomes miserable. They live in fear, hardly trusting anyone and often becoming wild. 

Look around you today – there are so many vulnerable children on our streets, many of them are drug addicts and a substantial number of them are victims of sexual abuse. As humans, we need to understand that the abused child is fighting a battle caused by a terrible experience.

Therefore, I believe “they need love not hate, help not bully and a confidant they can trust.” We need to help them discover their inner strength and God-given talent, because the event of rape makes them regard themselves as weak, useless and vulnerable. These helpless girls need the inner strength to help them fight their fears and weaknesses.

My story is a precedent of what defenseless young girls go through.

As a victim of sexual abuse, I was molested from the age of seven till I was fourteen. This is the most awful experience of my life. 

I grew up with a man I thought was my dad, not knowing he wasn’t. And he took advantage of my innocence at a very tender age.

He made my mum despise me so much that we became enemies. To him, that was the only way to make my mum not to listen to me whenever I tried telling her what I was going through.

My mum hated me so much that she had broken my head with a rod so many times, cut my vagina, and put hot chili pepper on the cuts.

She didn’t find out why a calm child like me became so stubborn or why I started running away from home from the age of 10. Whenever I returned home, she would beat me and put hot chili pepper in my eyes and on my private parts.

She only believed what her husband told her. 

When I turned 14 years old, she found out that I had been sexually assaulted by her husband. Around this time, I found out that her husband wasn’t my dad. Two years after my mum discovered her husband molested me, she couldn’t deal with it. She died, and the rape continued.

I remember trying to commit suicide so many times. 

I dropped out of school and most of the men that got to know my story called off our engagement. Whenever these men find out about my story, they say they “can’t be with a lady like me”, that I’m a “cursed child.”

This is a cross I still carry till today.

In the year 2016, in the United States of America, an American Professor heard my story and advised me to write a book about my life. 

It wasn’t a straightforward thing to do, but finally I had the courage to publish my book, which I entitled “I Called Him Dad” by Fatima Ishiaku – a book that was published in the United States.

I had to tell my painful story in my book so that society will see what abused girls go through in our society, mostly In Nigeria. 

My book is about saving the girl child and breaking the silence. It’s a very educational book based on my true-life story. “I Called Him Dad” is my painful story.

The best part is me using my painful story to help victims like myself.

There’s light at the end of the dark tunnel. 

My pain became my beautiful testimony.

Today I run a registered non-governmental organization “House of Fatima for Abused Girls Foundation”. This foundation caters to the needs of sexually abuse girls and boys in our society. I finally went back to school and now I am a graduate of Sociology from one of the best Universities in Nigeria. 

I’m using my story to help victims, to educate mothers on how they can protect their children from sexual abuse and help parents identify the signs to look out for. I emphasise the need for parents to listen to their children whenever they want to talk to them. To read the complete version of my story you can pick up my book on Amazon. Use this link: https://amzn.to/3mz5JeW

As I conclude, everyone, both old and young needs to understand that there is power in their voice and that they should never allow anybody to silence them. Speaking out will make a difference. It will expose the intent of rapists and bring to justice those that are into these acts.

  • “We say No to any kind of abuse.”
  • “We stand against gender-based violence.” 
  • “We stand against child marriage.”

Every girl child deserves an education and it is her fundamental right to be happy.

There is great power in our voice. 

You can visit our social media for more information:

Website: houseoffatima.org

Instagram: @houseoffatima_ng

Twitter: @houseoffatimang

Facebook: House of Fatima for Sexually Abused Girls

DAY NINE: Unmasking the Issues of Cows, Women, and Safety in India.

Today’s post focuses on the creative provocation -The Cow Mask Project- which highlights that, in India, women are seemingly less safe and less protected than cows.

Picture above: “The holy Cow personified as World Mother”, Wellcome Collection. Reproduced by permission.

Anisha Palat

Imagine taking a walk to an iconic landmark of India. Perhaps you are in Kolkata, staring at Howrah Bridge. Or you’re strolling past India Gate in New Delhi. Maybe you’re at the ghats of Varanasi, wistfully staring at the Ganges River. Suddenly, a man walks past you holding what looks like a black and white spotted mask. You look closer- is it an animal? Perhaps a cow? A woman accompanies him. She dons the mask (you now realise it is indeed a cow!) and poses in front of the landmark. He takes a picture. End scene.

What I have described above is a simple overview of India artist-activist Sujatro Ghosh’s Cow Mask project (2017-present). The essence of this project is an exploration of the safety of women in India.

“Do women need to be cows in order to feel safe in this country?”

Sujatra Ghosh, artist-activist of the Cow Mask project
PIcture above: Collage taken from Sujatra Ghosh’s website on ‘The Cow Mask Project’ (https://sujatroghosh.com/works)

The artist is making a bold statement in the land of the Holy Cow: in India, women seem less safe and less protected than cows. Sujatro’s concept is rooted in an extremely simple yet powerful aesthetic, where a cow mask donned by a woman provides a layer of protection to the said woman; the woman is safer now, on account of having a cow’s face, than she will ever be in India.

Cow protectionism in India is, without a doubt, at the forefront of the nation. Reports of lynching and violence in the name of this innocuous animal are a daily feature in the news. An official government body, the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog, also exists, cementing the cow’s status as being the most revered, respected and protected amongst living animals in India. The bull does not afford the same kind of respect and status that the cow does.

The roots of this nationalism and protection for the cow lies in late 19th and early 20th century calendar art images. The figure of the cow in these early images was characteristic of Kamadhenu or the divine cow and Gaumata or the mother cow; these were spread through India to help underscore the message of cow protectionism (see featured image). These images cemented the cow as symbolic of the nation itself, highlighted by the presence of 84 gods within the body of the cow: a Hindu rashtra (a Hindu country), a space that literally embodied the Hindu ideologies of the time. The cow became representative of a spatial phenomenon in terms of her material body. The protection of the cow then lay in protecting India as a space, the motherland, and the cow, all intertwined yet separated in a complex web of identity, pride and nationalism.

An important distinction to make at this point would be that cow protection lies in protecting the cow from those that are not Hindu (Muslims) and those that are lower-caste (like Dalits). Upper-caste Hindus are of the opinion that these communities are polluted for they deal with the dead cow in terms of meat and leather work. Therefore, the lynching that takes place in the name of the cow is primarily against men from these communities, and largely the perpetrators of this violence are also men.

So how do women come into the picture if cow protectionism is not typically against them? As mentioned earlier, the cow in India has been established as Gaumata and Kamadhenu, especially through the spread of calendar art images.

These representations are female tropes of motherhood, goddesses and divinity, thereby placing the cow above the realm of human. This placement, while seemingly positive, has actually enabled negativity for women and cultivated a culture where mother cow as goddess divine should be protected by men for men of the nation, but at the same time, mother, wife, sister and daughter do not deserve the same kind of reverence (and in turn protection).

Video: ‘Holy Cow’, A documentary about ‘The Cow Mask Project’ by Al Jazeera (Trailer)

As Sujatro Ghosh points out through his photographs, the only way a woman can potentially be safer is by wearing a cow mask. The materiality of the mask, interestingly the face of a Jersey cow (which is foreign) and not the native so-called holy cow, provides protection to the female population. The hybrid creature that emerges in Sujatro’s photograph, standing with her masked head held high in recognisable spaces in India, speaks of a way of the cow and woman coming together to represent the women of India as a strong voice against horrific crimes against the female.

The Jersey cow mask stands out for its associations with the ‘foreign’: is protection for the woman in India an unknown, strange phenomenon? Will it never be a part and parcel of our society?

The cow and its entrenchment in holiness and motherhood is demonstrative of the gendered trope of the cow and her protection by the men of India. This article has just presented an overview of the cow image and the strength of its iconography. Scope lies in detailing these ideas along with examining aspects of the male gaze and the cow as well as the cow in relation to caste-specific gender crimes.

What is important to take away is that while women in no way need to be protected by men, if the same kind of respect and reverence given to the cow is extended to women, India might become a nation with fewer gender-based violent crimes. The coming together of cow and woman might illustrate a coming together of animal and human, as well as nation and individual. Currently masked as a single hybrid, cow and women appear safer together like in Sujatro’s photographs. In the future, will the possibility of unmasking cow as woman and woman as cow offer solace or spread more fear? Or will the cow forever remain the single most important being protected and fought for in India?

Anisha Palat is a second year PhD History of Art student at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the cow image in Indian visual culture. She is exploring the visual vocabulary pertaining to the cow’s history as a symbol of mainstream cultural nationalism and looking at ways to decentre the current hegemonic and casteist links that the cow has come to represent. Anisha previously completed her Masters in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. She has researched the South Asian gallery sector as well as art and philanthropy in India for Art Tactic, London. She was also an art consultant and writer for Ashvita’s, an Indian online auction and gallery platform.

You can find Anisha on Twitter and Instagram through her handle, @anishapalat

Sujatro Ghosh is an Indian photographer artist-activist and feminist scholar from Calcutta, currently  based in Berlin. Sujatro works on women’s rights, LGBTQI issues and environmental concerns. Website: https://sujatroghosh.com Instagram: @sujatroghosh

DAY NINE: Women’s Resistance in Three Acts: Experiencing 21st Century Delhi

Delhi as one of the most unsafe cities in the world for women but it is also a site of creative resistance.

Picture above from Wikimedia.org

Meenakshi Nair

Across India, and indeed the world, gendered domestic violence has seen a sharp uptick on account of stay-at-home orders during the Covid-19 pandemic. Crime statistics, news reports, and personal experiences construct Delhi as one of the most unsafe cities in the world for women, especially after the horrific gangrape and murder of Jyoti Singh in 2012. In the face of violence, Delhi also emerges as a site of creative resistance. In this blog post, I will briefly explore three acts of resistance by young women in Delhi against gender-based violence.

Bura Na Mano, Holi Hai!

Enjoyment and revelry are often coded with violence and are therefore exclusionary. For instance, the onset of spring in North India is marked by the celebration of Holi, or the festival of colours. Holi includes an element of playfulness – people smear colour and fling water balloons at one another. It is a festival that is meant to be fun, full of revelry, and for all alike. However, this revelry is gendered in nature and not as inclusive as it claims to be. The rallying cry for Holi play is “Bura na mano, Holi hai” or “Don’t be offended, it’s Holi” – and it is a rallying cry that seems to excuse all manner of sins. 

In the days leading up to Holi young women experience a heightened sense of both violence itself and the fear of violence while negotiating public spaces. This is because of a street harassment, or “eve-teasing” that, during Holi, takes the form of non-consensual Holi play – groups of young men throw water balloons at young women who have not consented to play Holi with them, and are instead going about their everyday activities. These water balloons are filled with a variety of fluids ranging from coloured water, mud, eggs, and even semen. 

In some cases, young women are able to file police complaints follow the case all the way to testifying in court. In most instances, however, young women receive no redressal. Revelry and celebration are meant to be creative, joyous occasions, experienced by all members of a community. However, the nature of Holi revelry is violent and exclusionary.

Khadar Ki Ladkiya: Young Women Speak Back!

In her work on young women from Lyari, in Karachi, Pakistan, Nidah Kirmani writes about how research often conducts women from the global south as passive recipients of violence. Kirmani finds this limiting and narrow, and instead argues that should also acknowledge and value the everyday experiences and enjoyment of women from the global south to construct a more complex and textured understanding. 

Khadar ki Ladkiya is a spoken word video shared on YouTube, written and performed in by the young women of Madanpur Khadar JJ Colony, a slum resettlement area at the outskirts of Delhi. On the one hand, it resists several kinds of violence and erasure that the young women of Khadar face. On the other hand, it bears witness to their everyday lives.

One of the violences the young woman of Khadar face, perhaps more subtle than overt sexual assault, is the kind of epistemic violence that Kirmani talks about: these young women are treated as readily available ‘samples’ for researchers or as passively waiting subjects for workshops on education, empowerment, and hygiene by civil society organisations. These young women are not considered to be legitimate producers of knowledge who are actively capable of creating knowledge about their own lives and experiences. 

In their collective spoken word piece, these young women recount the challenges of living in the city as young women seeking to be independent.

They acknowledge the larger culture of silence and impunity around gender-based violence and sharply critique the culture of protectionism that would rather young women remained within the domestic sphere than make public spaces safer and more inclusive. They also highlight how law enforcement and the police are at best, in dereliction of their duty, and at worst complicit in the violence.

The spoken word video functions as active resistance, but also bears witness to their everyday lives and enjoyment. 

Bharatanatyam in the Wild: Women’s Bodies as Spectacle

In the winter of 2017, I was part of an online dance project called Bharatanatyam in the Wild. It was imagined, shot, directed, and performed in by young women. The project took the classical south Indian dance form Bharatanatyam out of its usual contexts of the temple courtyard or proscenium stage and into the ‘wild’ – the public spaces of Delhi. These spaces included metro stations, public parks, and traffic intersections. While on the one hand the project explored the nature of the classical form itself, it also explored the presence of gendered bodies in urban public spaces. 

Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan, and Shilpa Ranade explore gendered experiences of public spaces, focusing on Mumbai, India, in their book Why Loiter? (2010). They demonstrate that men are free to be in public spaces safely for both work and leisure, and are free to loiter or hang out in public. Women, on the other hand, must have a purpose to be in public – either for education, employment, errands, or to add to the economy by purchasing goods. Women are not free to loiter.

Bharatanatyam in the Wild sought not only have women ‘be’ in public spaces, but also to engage in performance and spectacle in public spaces. The project drew attention to women who were using their bodies to occupy space and make art.

Personally, I did not feel unsafe or scared while engaged with this project: I knew that the moment I felt uncomfortable, I would be able to get myself away from the situation and to comfort by any number of means of transport. 

Additionally, the embodiment of the dancers and videographers perhaps also signalled a privileged class-caste background – our clothing, the presence of multiple video cameras, and the fact that we communicated to one another in English – and thus granted us a degree of safety perhaps unavailable to young women from, for instance, a slum or resettlement area. 

In some contexts, young women turn to due process for justice by filing police cases and going to court. In others, they bear witness to their own lives and experiences, resisting gendered (and classed) erasure and violence. In yet others, the body is made into a spectacle in order to reclaim public spaces. Resistance thus exists in many forms and is embodied in many different ways. 

Meenakshi Nair has been working towards her MA in Comparative Literature (Asia-Africa) at SOAS, University of London after studying English Literature at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. She is interested in urban narratives across genres and media, performance, and in questions of curriculum and pedagogy. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Nether Quarterly and Porridge Magazine. 

DAY EIGHT: South Africa’s Blue Dress: art as an alternative record of sexual and gender-based violence

In this post, Eliza Garnsey explores how the powerful South African artworks “The Blue Dress” provide an alternative record of women’s experiences of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

Picture above: Fig.1: Installation view of Judith Mason, The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent (The Blue Dress) (1998), triptych, inside the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Photography by Akona Kenqu (2014). 

Eliza Garnsey

Inside the Constitutional Court of South Africa hangs Judith Mason’s The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent, more commonly known as The Blue Dress (Fig. 1). The Court is a unique space by international comparison because it houses a large visual art collection developed by the court, and for the court.

In this post I explore The Blue Dress as an alternative record of women’s experiences of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV); experiences which are largely absent from the official record of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SATRC).[1] [MF1] 

Mason created The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent (The Blue Dress) to commemorate Phila Ndwandwe and Harold Sefola who were members of the African National Congress (ANC) fighting for freedom from apartheid. They were murdered by security branch officers of the South African Police in the late 1980s. The stories of their deaths emerged during the amnesty hearings of the SATRC . 

Sefola was an ANC activist, who—along with two of his colleagues, Jackson Maake and Andrew Makupe—was abducted, tortured and murdered. During his interrogation, Sefola requested to sing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica (God Bless Africa). Maake, Makupe and Sefola were electrocuted to death. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica is now the national anthem of South Africa. Sefola was the man who sang. 

Ndwandwe was a member of uMkonte weSizwe (spear of the nation, also known as MK) which was the armed wing of the ANC. She was exiled to Swaziland after being arrested in South Africa. From Swaziland, Ndwandwe was the acting commander of Natal MK activities. Ndwandwe disappeared in 1988. The SATRC investigation into her disappearance uncovered evidence against seven security branch officers who were responsible for Ndwandwe’s abduction, detention, and murder. Their testimonies led to Ndwandwe’s remains being located; her body was found with remnants of a blue plastic bag, most often cited as being fashioned into a pair of underwear, wrapped around her body. Ndwandwe was the woman who kept silent; who was silenced. 

Fig 2. Judith Mason, 1998, The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent I (The Blue Dress), found plastic bags, thread, white paint, approx. 200 × 70 × 45 cm. Constitutional Court Art Collection, Johannesburg. Photography by Ben Law-Viljoen. © Succession Judith Mason | DALRO

In response, Mason sewed a dress from blue plastic bags (Fig. 2) on the hem of which she wrote a letter to Ndwandwe: 

Sister, a plastic bag may not be the whole armour of God, but you were wrestling with flesh and blood, and against powers, against the rulers of darkness, against spiritual wickedness in sordid places. Your weapons were your silence and a piece of rubbish. Finding that bag and wearing it until you were disinterred is such a frugal, commonsensical, house-wifely thing to do, an ordinary act… At some level you shamed your captors, and they did not compound their abuse of you by stripping you a second time. Yet they killed you. We only know your story because a sniggering man remembered how brave you were. Memorials to your courage are everywhere; they blow about in the streets and drift on the tide and cling to thorn-bushes. This dress is made from some of them. Hambe kahle. Umkhonto [Go well, Spear of the Nation]. 

Judith Mason, artist

Mason uses plastic bags to emphasize Ndwandwe’s resistance to the violation of her bodily autonomy, and ultimately her life. In contrast to their material fragility, plastic bags become markers of Ndwandwe’s defiance. They are transformed from refuse into powerful sacred objects.

The form of the dress and the way in which it gestures to women’s experiences in anti-apartheid struggles is critical. The SATRC has been widely critiqued for failing to address the experiences of many women, especially in relation to the politics of SGBV. By focusing on the direct victims of gross human rights violations, the SATRC resulted in a blindness to the types of abuse predominantly experienced by women. This was compounded by the Commission’s determination that in the context of their mandate to grant amnesty for politically motivated violence, rape was not considered to be political. Although this determination was “motivated by an interest in heightened accountability for rape” it sent a problematic message about the recognition of the politics of SGBV.

The SATRC report emphasizes Ndwandwe’s modesty, dignity, and nakedness at the time of her death over and above her role as a trained political operative and her resistance to torture and rape. The Blue Dress points towards the suspected sexual violence experienced by Ndwandwe which the SATRC record failed to acknowledge; violence represented in the paintings by the imagery of the hyena tearing the dress in the dirt (FIGs. 3 and 4).

In the letter on the dress, Mason describes the plastic bag as a weapon; one which shamed Ndwandwe’s captors. The implication is that the plastic bag prevented further violence. The focus is on Ndwandwe’s resistance to victimhood, rather than her victimization—a contrast to the official record.

Fig. 3. Judith Mason, 1998, The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent II, oil on canvas, 190 × 160 cm. Constitutional Court Art Collection, Johannesburg. Photography by Ben Law-Viljoen. © Succession Judith Mason | DALRO 
Fig. 4. Judith Mason, 1998, The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent III, oil on canvas, 166 × 122 cm. Constitutional Court Art Collection, Johannesburg. Photography by Ben Law-Viljoen. © Succession Judith Mason | DALRO 

The Blue Dress comes to symbolise the many victims and survivors of SGBV whose stories remain absent from the official record. The artwork imbues plastic bags and their ubiquitous presence with symbolic meaning about “the pervasive violence enacted on women’s bodies”. Taken together, the materiality of the plastic bags and the gendered symbolism of the dress, create the possibility of an alternative record. 

The presence of The Blue Dress at the centre of South Africa’s constitutional democracy is a critical reminder of what is missing elsewhere. 

[1] The post draws on six months of participant observation fieldwork at the Court, which involved 54 interviews with people associated with the Court, including judges, law clerks, staff members, artists, and visitors, as well as visual and archival research. 

This post draws on ideas explored in The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition(CUP, 2020) and in ‘South Africa’s Blue Dress: (Re)imagining Human Rights through Art’, Angelaki 24/4 (2019) 38-51 (published here with the permission of Taylor and Francis). Free copies of the article are available here. 

Eliza Garnsey is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College Cambridge. She is currently an Honorary Associate at the Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney. Eliza’s research focuses on art and visual culture in international relations and world politics, particularly in relation to human rights, transitional justice, and conflict. Her book, The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition (CUP, 2020), explores how art can engage and shape ideas of justice in ways which have the capacity to address identity divisions and exclusions in nations emerging from conflict.

You can follow her on Twitter @Eliza_Garnsey