Sue Williamson: memory and identity
With several exhibitions and projects on the go, Sue Williamson remains one of SA’s most prolific artists
According to Aboriginal tradition, Australia is crisscrossed with songlines that trace the routes taken by the ancestors when they sang the landscape, its animals and its people into being. We can apply a similar analogy to SA, except in our case it is storylines that have shaped the land. Rage and heartbreak have carved our ravines, hope has raised our mountains and love and forgiveness form the tempo of our seas. Storylines are what shape much of Williamson’s work. In a sense it is a return to oral tradition, a contemporary platform where generations can hand down their stories and use them to make sense of memory and identity. Alternatively, she uses her work as a conduit to tell neglected or forgotten stories, like Lost District (2016) in which she engraved a panoramic view into the window of Cape Town’s Goodman Gallery. The gallery overlooks District Six, so Williamson referenced historic images to carve the outlines of the buildings that were demolished. The lines cast shadows...
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