March 16, 2022 - March 26, 2022
The shopfronts in
Bathurst St., Makhanda, Eastern Cape, reflect
the ways in which its colonial past merge with its digital present. Remnants of
wooden door frames, stain glass, The Observatory Museum which houses a
panopticon like camera obscura and the pervasive name of Bathurst mix with
cell-phone kiosks and fast-food signs.
Bathurst St. is very
wide, wide enough, legend has it, to turn a horse cart, which was necessary in
the 1820’s when my ancestors, Emily and Philip Dixie opened a Haberdashery shop
there. Bathurst St. named after Lord Bathurst was a
Politician and British Colonial Officer. In June 1812 he become Secretary of State for
War and Colonies under the Earl of Liverpool until April 1827. It was to Lord
Bathurst that Lord Charles Somerset wrote urging the settlement of British
subjects to create a human barrier between the Cape Colony and the amaXhosa
territory.
Ironically, Bathurst St., is now in the town
newly named Makhanda. Makhanda also known
as Nxele ("the left-handed"), was a Xhosa warrior, prophet,
and advisor to Chief Ndlambe. It was Makhanda who helped instigate a failed
attack against the town of (then) Grahamstown.
In the prints, the woodcut imitates an ‘engraving’,
the style in which images of the frontier were transmitted to the European
‘centre’ in newspapers such as The Illustrated London News. It is through the
frames of the cellphone, devices from the present, that a new narrative is taking
place.
