Here I Am and Here I Am and That’s Just Me”: Reimagining Celebrity with the Girls of District Six.

Program: Here I Am and Here I Am and That’s Just Me”: Reimagining Celebrity with the Girls of District Six.
Date: 17 May 2022
Time: 9:00-13:00
Venue: Javett-UP Auditorium
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On International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, Biphobia and Intersexphobia (IDAHOBIT) The Javett Art Centre, in collaboration with the GALA Queer Archive, invites you to join us for an interactive presentation on the Kewpie Collection by Dr. Ruth Ramsden-Karelse and a walkabout of the Yakhal’Inkomo exhibition. This exhibition which explores how Black South African artists forged acts of creative defiance during the most tumultuous times under apartheid (1960s to late 1990s). This walk about will allow for critical discussions around queerness, creativity, self-expression and more.
Most photographs in the Kewpie Collection were taken between 1966 and 1982. During this time, sixty-thousand residents were forcibly removed from District Six as the area was physically demolished by the Nationalist government. Simultaneously, this government criminalised and persecuted those who lived their gender and sexualities in diverse ways. Yet, in Kewpie’s photographs, this harsh reality is transformed into a world in which the girls of District Six can be stars.
As part of GALA’s efforts to make the Kewpie Collection accessible to wider audiences, Dr. Ruth Ramsden-Karelse will share some of her research on these striking photographs and their portrayal of a community and place that has since been lost. She will take us on an interactive exploration of the ways in which the girls of District Six used photography to reimagine celebrity and facilitate a discussion around topics such as queerness, gender, visibility, and fabulousness, before we proceed into the Javett Art Centre for a walkabout of the Yakhal’Inkomo exhibition on show.