The See Studio 2022 Texts Published
A selection of texts written by participants in the See Studio, which took place in Cape Town in November 2022, can now be read online. The See Studio is part of an ongoing transnational project, See, led by Cape Town-based urbanist Zahira Asmal and produced by her agency, The City. The See Studio invited participants based in South Africa and the Netherlands to work together on specific themes related to the post-colonial city.
1 December 2023
From 20 to 27 November 2022, The City, in collaboration with the Nieuwe Instituut and the Research Center for Material Culture, hosted a week-long studio that brought together South African and Dutch practitioners working with and on history, memory and the making of inclusive and representative spaces in post-colonial cities. The See Studio consisted of a series of exchanges, expert presentations, tours, public engagements and written texts.
The studio concluded with a public programme in which the work produced during the studio was presented in venues chosen by the participants and facilitated by The City team. The contributions of the Dutch participants were made possible by the Nieuwe Instituut. The selection of submissions can be downloaded below.
Decolonising Nature: Sowing Seeds to Unearth the Routes of Water and People
Theme: Taming the Wild: (DE)colonial Imprints in Cape Town’s Natural World
By Kawthar Jeewa (MU), Sara Frikech (NL)
Read here
The Sending of the Crows
Theme: Invisible Hybridity: A Journey into the Music, Language and Literature of the Cape
By Judith Westerveld (NL), participated together with Uzair Ben Ebrahim (SA)
Read here
The Rituals of Remembering: Intergenerational Healing in Forgotten Histories
Theme: The Rituals of Remembering: Intergenerational Healing in Forgotten Histories
By Nancy Jouwe (NL), participated together with Janine Overmeyer (SA)
Read here
“Jan van Riebeek was a Racist Coloniser” – Can the Castle of Good Hope ever be decolonised and become a space of healing and restorative justice?
Theme: Architectures of Resistance: Encountering Justice through Memory
By Mitchell Esajas (NL)
Read here
About See
See is a transnational project initiated by Zahira Asmal (The City, Cape Town). It brings together cities, institutions, activists, artists, designers, and other creatives to exchange ideas, discuss and develop methodologies for achieving representational justice in the public life of cities affected by colonialism, slavery and apartheid. It is produced in collaboration with various individuals and institutions in South Africa and the Netherlands who share an interest in history, memory, and democracy-making.
Within this framework, the Nieuwe Instituut, in collaboration with the Research Center of Material Cultures (RCMC), organised the transnational workshop Cities, Archives & Colonialism: Fashioning Convivial Futures, and an International Visitors Programme in October 2019 in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
The See Studio is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL and DutchCulture.
For more information on See and the See Studio, visit the See website.