Colombo and Cape Town – exploring a forgotten link
View(s):That both Cape Town and Colombo were once colonial settlements of the Dutch and share a common history is not very well known. This surprising connection between the two cities and their forgotten memory is the core of “There Was Something Here Before”, an interactive international exhibition on slavery and the urban heritage of Cape Town by urbanist and researcher from South Africa, Zahira Asmal, that is now on in Colombo.
Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Sri Lanka, the exhibition is open to the public free of charge from July 18- 27 from 10 a.m. at the 1st Floor of the Clock Tower Building, Independence Arcade, Colombo 7.
Van Riebeeck's Hedge: The Almond Hedge, the first apartheid structure in Cape Town, planted by the Dutch as a means of segregation. Pic by Zahira Asmal
Zahira’s research into the history of Cape Town including wine farms showed many enslaved people originating from ‘Ceylon’. In 2023, Zahira’s research led her to Sri Lanka, where she searched for traces of the Cape ancestors that she had learned about in archives, books, and sites of memory, and that shape the identity of their descendants. ’What traces of the Cape ancestors remain?’ ‘Who and what did they leave behind? What stories are being told about them in the places from which they were taken?’ These are the questions that fired the making of this exhibition.
Zahira Asmal
The exhibition forms part of See, an ongoing project produced by her agency, The City, in collaboration with individuals and institutions that are part of, or have a connection to, Cape Town’s past and present.
This exhibition in Colombo will form the first leg of this international exhibition, which Zahira will be taking to other countries in the region. It explores the key themes of history, memory and forgetting and these will be linked to Sri Lanka through the events organised around the exhibition.
Visitors to the exhibition are first introduced to the idyllic cityscapes of Cape Town, which frames what one would see and what is not seen. They are then encouraged to journey on to the counter narratives of Cape Town, held within ten cardboard boxes and a suitcase. These contains artefacts and archival fragments of the private worlds; the unseen worlds that bespeak indigenous rites, slavery, forced removals, housing struggles and more.
Accompanying the exhibition are film screenings and talks. Today, Sunday, 20th at 10.30 Zahira Asmal will be in conversation with Johann Latiff and Tashiya de Mel on photography and its role in storytelling.
On Tuesday, July 22, a full day Masterclass on Making Memory will see a series of expert presentations by Buddisha Weerasuriya, Hasini Haputhanthri, Johann Peiris, Shayari de Silva, Dr.Tanuja Thurairajah, Tashiya de Mel and Zahira Asmal. This will be with prior registration (contact Menaka Rajapakse +94 77 876 0871).
Thursday, July 25 will feature three discussions on Slavery in the Indian Ocean by Prof. Nira Wickramasinghe, Leiden University at 10.30 a.m., folllowed by Digitalisation of colonial objects by Prof. Naazima Kamardeen, University of Colombo at 1 p.m and Colombo: wetland to Indian Ocean City by Prof. Sujit Sivasundaram, University of Cambridge at 2.15 p.m.
The final event – Ceremonies in Everyday Urbanity will be on Sunday, July 27 at 6 p.m. conducted by Natasha Ginwala, Firi Rahman and Pamudu Tennakoon.
All events are open to the public and will be held at the exhibition venue. Additionally there would be exhibition walkabouts daily beginning at 10 a.m.
The exhibition and all events are open to the public free of charge. In some cases registration may be required.
For updates visit the website There Was Something Here Before – I SEE YOU
Facebook and Instagram on the page @thecityagency.
For group tours of the exhibition, contact Menaka Rajapakse +94 77 876 0871.
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