“Three generations of white South African men were bound together at that table. Vermuelen was the first generation. He defined Africa, made it safe for Basson to defile. I was the last generation, the last to grow up in segregated neighborhoods. Between us was the silent photograph of Wouter Basson. Like a distant father, Basson was absent at the dining table.” – Henk Rossouw (Hole in the White ‘Hood). Also Mahmood Mamdani on Bantu Education at UCT, Gael Reagon on sisterhood, Binyavanga Wainaina on dis-covering Kenya, Gaston Zossou on African intellectuals and more…
Cover:
Strange Fruit by Lewis Allen
Invisible Inventories – the Zine! (Iwalewa Books, 2021)
Published by iwalewabooks (Bayreuth/Johannesburg) and Kwani (Nairobi), the contributions from IIP members and Kenyan museum professionals and practitioners critically reflect museum and restitution politics but also the limits of the cooperation between African and Europeans museums. Besides conversations, essays and texts that accompany the artworks in the exhibition with the same title, the publication also contains a number of object biographies written by different authors that provide different perspectives on the very same objects.
The zine supports the decolonising approach of the project by providing perspectives yet underrepresented in international discussions and aims to contribute to the debate on colonial histories that are inscribed in collections and museum.
With contributions by The Nest Collective, Jacky Kwonyike, Leonie Chima Emeka and Niklas Obermann, Chao Tayiana Maina, Sam Hopkins and Simon Rittmeier, George Abungu, Marian Nur Goni, Juma Ondeng', SHIFT Collective, Leonie Neumann and Frauke Gathof, Clara Himmelheber, Philemon Nyamanga and Lydia Nafula, Philip Jimbi Katana, Wandile Kasibe.