South Africa's Blue Dress
(Re)imagining Human Rights Through Art
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3774668 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eliza Garnsey (0000-0003-3481-5585, University of Cambridge) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 38-51 |
| Publication date | 2019-07-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Angelaki (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0969-725X • E-ISSN: 1469-2899 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0969725x.2019.1635823 |
| OpenAlex | W2961562962 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 15 |
Inside the Constitutional Court of South Africa hangs Judith Mason's artwork, entitled The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent, more commonly known as The Blue Dress. Mason created the artwork to commemorate Phila Ndwandwe and Harold Sefola after hearing testimony from the perpetrators of their deaths at the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In this article I explore how The Blue Dress contributes to the reimagining of human rights culture in South Africa in three key ways. First, the artwork is a symbolic reparation that recognizes the harm suffered under apartheid. Second, the artwork is an alternative record of women's experiences of sexual violence; experiences which are largely absent from the official TRC record. Third, the artwork is a form of judicial consciousness which keeps the past alive so that a different future can be imagined. I argue that The Blue Dress instantiates an "ethics of responsibility" in post-apartheid human rights discourse. That is, the responsibility to remember past violations of human rights in order to prevent future ones and the responsibility to recognize past triumphs of human rights in order to support future ones. The article draws on seven months of participant observation fieldwork at the Court, which included fifty-four interviews with judges, clerks, staff members, advocates, artists, curators, and visitors, as well as visual and archival research
Commission · Consciousness · Harm · Human rights · Order (exchange · Political science · Sociology · Law in Society and Culture · Legal Issues in South Africa · Psychology · South African History and Culture · Law
Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice
Gendered Violence
The Spectacle of Post-Apartheid Constitutionalism
Rewinding and Unwinding
Performing dialogical truth and transitional justice
Storytelling and fraught histories
To shape our own lives and our own world’
Framing human dignity
"Visualizing" Apartheid
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.29 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |