PARTY (Participatory Development with The Youth)

Recollection: Voices of San Youth

The proposed theme of ‘Recollection’ speaks to one’s ability to remember an experience, story, thought and feeling. Storytelling is an important part of many indigenous cultures, and this is true of the San as well. Inspiration was taken by the extensive collection of San art at the Kalk Bay Modern:

“Sparingly dispersed throughout Southern Africa, rock paintings can be found, dating back thousands of years. These images are the only threads of history left to tell the story of the San way of life that no longer exists. As an indigenous people deeply connected with nature and animals; they visually reference oral tradition of expressing daily life and mythological beliefs, which continues to be both integral and vital in passing down from one generation to the next. Contemporary San art is a natural evolution of their creativity to interpret their dreams, their morals and retain their world which is rapidly disintegrating.”
Bushman Art — Kalk Bay Modern

The exhibition theme is underpinned by the process and visualization of storytelling and printing as a medium to capture recollection and present to an audience. The exhibition aims to place the choice of recollection, and thus content, in the hands of participants themselves – exploring both the individual world and the world of community. Instead of presenting an exhibition ABOUT the San youth, the exhibition aims to exhibit stories BY the San youth. Their voices, their stories.

The exhibition aimed to celebrate the creative nature of San youth and explore their stories of personal triumph and community experience. The collection of prints represent a moment in time, captured through storytelling and realized through creative exploration. The exhibition also included photos and digital stories of the ‘making’ process. The team initially worked with youth from one of the project stakeholders, !KHwaTTu.

In a facilitated session youth participants learned the basics of collagraph printing and block prints. They produced a unique piece, which was exhibited. The sessions aimed to produce intimate items of personal storytelling, and will also focus on developing skills that the participants could use in future endeavours to produce their own prints. The skills transfer associated with this session directly speaks to ethical community research practice as it empowers participants with new skills that can be replicated outside of the session. The experience created a ‘leave behind’ of printing skills towards a reciprocal relationship between researchers and community. Exposure to the process and the ownership of the final print is a tangible leave behind for the participants.