Familiar Names on the Writers' Floor
I am hoping that someone else writes a little more about the history of District Six which we studied in class and learned more about with our visit to the District Six Museum. This post is dedicated to one of my favorite features of the museum--the "Writer's Floor." Information about this the creation and purpose of this floor is on an informational wall posting inside the room and I am going to transcribe it here (because the picture is a little blurry):
The Making of the Writers' Floor
The District museum grew out of the symbolic historical meanings associated with the traumatic landscape of District Six. As salted earth, Distric Six has been depicted in visual terms, through murals, art installations and on film. But the Museum was also driven by the urgency of voices and the nuances of language. These have been major elements that continue to provide generative energy, the content and the form of the Museum project. Wrriten texts have always played a visual role in the Museum and when the need to design a floor in the Memorial Hall arose the writers' tiles were immediately envisaged as part of the mosaic.
The concept of the mosaic floor was linked to the notion of District Six as a place representing the centre, almost the eye of the city, linked also to a broader webbing of places and connections. It is concerned with multiple notions: about centre and distance; about place and displacement; about time and eras; about connections beyond District Six and the ties that remain. Lines radiate from North to South, East to West and meet at the centre. The inner and outer circles symbolise near and far horizons. They refer too to edges and boundaries, dislocation and return. Its design is a symbolic topography of history, identity and desire. The subject of line fragments are a reference to the archaeological excavation of 17 layers of linoleum found on the site of a Horstley street home.
Both artists and writers were involved in the making of this floor. The writers selected their texts and ni a series of workshops wrote in brush or pen directly onto the ceramic tiles. Volunteers inscribed the texts of writers no longer living or those unable to be there. These were then fired in a kiln. All the floor elements, writers' tiles, slate, cobbles and coloured mosaic images, were then assembled and integrated on the floor within the framework of the median lines and the inner and outer circles of the design. The low curing seat under the windows is built of Table Mountain granite kerb-stones from District Six. The quiet, slightly raised platform area at the opposite end contains the sunken installation, Horstley Street: interior. On the walls the panels focus on the layered history of life in Horstley Street from the first removals of 'African' inhabitants until the last removals in 1981.
I think this installation is incredible and it speaks to the idea that art has a healing element. Throughout this trip, we have seen beautiful art made by local artists and refugees, heard great music, listened to poetry, bought inventive jewelry--these are all forms of art that are helping to heal the wounds of apartheid. Art isn't just healing because it allows people to express and feel emotion and release negativity, but it has an economic incentive as well. As a tourist, half of the mementos I brought back, at least, fall into the category of art and I tried to buy at the open markets where the profits will go to supporting locals and refugees. Hopefully, the amazing art that these incredible men and women have crafted helps bring the healing of more equitable distirubtion of economic resources as well.
Back to the writers' floor--I found two familiar names so I thought I would include photos of their poems here as well.