Trauma and representation in Africa.

People interested in Africa often lament popular representations of it. In the United States, for example, Africa continues to be represented as a dark and violent space in both mainstream media and popular culture. These depictions often fail to examine the roots or realities of current conflict in Africa, and they usually depict African peoples as either victims or perpetrators, without agency, dignity, or humanity. In contrast, stories of another kind--ones that capture, for instance, the positive encounters in everyday lives, the brilliant contributions of African artists and scholars, or the continent's rich cultural heritage--appear rarely. Given these circumstances, it may seem that this special issue of African Arts devoted to the topic of trauma and representation in Africa is unnecessary, or perhaps even destructive. However, as guest editors of this issue and as teachers and scholars who care deeply about Africa, our hope is to spark a necessary dialogue about the representation of African trauma and the meaningful ways in which visual artists have responded to it.

Violence and trauma each have a significant place in history, daily life, and representation. Compared to other parts of the world, Africa and Africans have experienced violent encounters and traumatic aftermaths in considerable and disproportionate measure through time. For centuries, artists and other image-makers have represented these experiences for different audiences and purposes. Indeed, such images have greatly informed political purpose in the African Diaspora and global perceptions of Africans. We hope that the conversation started here will be ongoing, continuing within the pages of African Arts, in classrooms, in museum and gallery spaces, at professional conferences, and anywhere else where people who care about Africa and its representations may meet.

We are deeply engaged with teaching and writing about the representation of violence and issues that arise from it. As scholars, we both wrote dissertations that explore these themes in recent South African visual culture. As teachers, we have been long dismayed by how little most American students know about Africa, including histories as recent and significant as South Africa's transition to democracy, Rwanda's genocide, or Sudan's continued bloodshed. Of equal occasion for dismay is the impression that most students don't understand their ability to affect change. We hope that this collection of articles will fuel a larger discussion.

We offer some questions as a starting point. What ethical considerations do artists and scholars face when addressing traumatic histories, particularly when those histories are not their own? What roles do collective and personal memory play in visually recounting and/or recovering from trauma? How might traumatic experiences be commemorated through performance, monument, memorial, or exhibition? What are the pedagogical implications of teaching about violence in Africa? What are the implications of leaving this topic out of our syllabi or exhibitions?

This project began when we organized a panel on the same theme for the 2001 ACASA Triennial Conference in St. Thomas, USVI. The quality of papers we received and the audience's animated response encouraged us to move the project one step further. (Four of the five original papers, by Hill, Miller, Mirzoeff, and van der Watt, are included here.) Simply put, we were thrilled to learn that the editors of African Arts agreed to publish this special issue devoted to representing African trauma. Accordingly, as editors of this volume, we asked contributors to address the ethical and philosophical implications of creating, writing, and teaching about these experiences, or to explore popular misunderstanding of conflict, its sources, and its outcomes, in Africa and anywhere within its diaspora. We are pleased to bring together this collection of essays that offer responses to some of the questions raised above from a variety of practical and theoretical perspectives, here in our discipline's most visible and influential journal.

Shannen Hill explores South Africa's changing social order by considering the "postmortem portraits" of fallen activist Bantu Stephen Biko in works by five South African artists spanning twenty years. Arguing that the uncertainty that prompts forensic inquiry inherently extends the meaning of the pathologist's record, Hill analyzes re-presentations of Biko's 1977 autopsy photographs as a measure of South Africa's "wider cultural notions about changing power relations, order and disorder, and conceptions of self within society." She also contributes to a small body of literature concerned with the semiotics of autopsy imaging. Liese van der Watt is similarly concerned with South Africa's changing social order, and thus she interrogates the "responsibility of whiteness" for those individuals who were perpetrators of past injustices, and for their descendants. While other scholars have done similar examinations within economic, political, and human rights frameworks, van der Watt adds a fresh perspective by examining these issues from a cultural view. Her close analysis of works by two South African artists demonstrates how visual artists can devise "productive ways to deal with South Africa's traumatic past."

Likewise, Nicholas Mirzoeff's article concerns issues of historical responsibility by drawing our attention to the worrisome lack of representation of the Rwandan genocide. Theorizing as to the implications of and reasons for this absence, Mirzoeff considers the work of a handful of artists who have found ways to address the events of 1994. In doing so, these artists from Rwanda and elsewhere have done something important: They have not ignored a period of historic bloodshed that needs to be remembered visually despite the possible negative ethical implications of doing so. In discussing these works, Mirzoeff explores the urgency for, and limits of, visual representation of violence. Kim Miller's concern with the invisibility of women's experiences with violence leads her also to examine cultural responses to past traumas, but within the context of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Here, Miller considers the work of four artists who call attention to the near absence of women's stories of suffering in both official narration and visual representation. Drawing on trauma studies and black feminist theory, Miller argues that these artists, along with many others, continue the work of the Truth Commission as they critique its results.

Brenda Schmahmann's article on the Mapula embroidery project in rural South Africa also raises feminist concerns: It considers the creative ways a group of women artists approach issues of trauma and injustice through cloth. Highlighted works address local and global traumas, including death, the impact of AIDS on this local community, and the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Schmahmann also considers how the longstanding impact of apartheid policies, which were especially traumatic for women in this area of South Africa, has registered in their work. Her insightful analysis suggests that these artists "represent" trauma indirectly, through the depiction of South African political leaders and symbols of nationhood. Sidney Kasfir also writes about the relationship between national identity visual media, and memory in her examination of artistic responses to the 1998 bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi. Through an investigation of various artistic attempts to memorialize this "collective national trauma," Kasfir explores the connections between national trauma, modernity, and visual culture.

Together, these essays make significant contributions to the growing field of trauma and representation studies. With their focus on African experiences and visual arts--two areas in dire need of more scholarly attention within trauma studies--we hope that these essays will call attention to the important and productive ways in which visual culture can respond, instruct, heal, and affect change. As scholars aware of the power of representation, we feel compelled to foster dialogue that will bring about consciousness that may lead to action. The "guerrilla scholar" that Robert Farris Thompson is said to foster encourages us to look and think broadly about the workings of visual expression. We modify the activist element of this persona: Whether teaching, curating, collecting, or simply discussing African art, we hope to create a meaningful exchange about the questions raised above and ultimately to encourage individuals to become agents of change.