Protests

Today we listened to a presentation by Stellenbosch University’s Rabia Abba Omar about her project, Open Forum. While in Stellenbosch, we heard about several instances of student protests and their impacts. One such instance was about removing the statue of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town.  Rhodes is one of Southern Africa’s most controversial figures.  Open Forum’s intent was to give an opportunity for artists to provide works of art, which represent the perspectives of people involved in these protests. 

At Stellenbosch University, student protests were receiving media attention, which depicted protest acts as violent. Open Forum sought to change that. Ms. Omar’s project provided workshops to allow students to “decompress” and focus on how students can use art to convey protest messages. Ms. Omar showed us three examples of the students’ works: “Is this a protest?”, “Flight," and “The Dustbin.” Although not all of the activities led to “successes” or “disciplinary actions” by the authorities, it was interesting to see how students saw problems at their university, and how they thought it best to bring attention to those problems to the public.

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/openforumresidency

Hanna G

07/20/2022