Ideas worth spreading

Living sculptures that stand for history's truths

1,233,745 views |

Sethembile Msezane |

TEDGlobal 2017

• August 2017

In the century-old statues that occupy Cape Town, Sethembile Mzesane didn't see anything that looked like her own reality. So she became a living sculpture herself, standing for hours on end in public spaces dressed in symbolic costumes, to reclaim the city and its public spaces for her community. In this powerful, tour-de-force talk, she shares the stories and motivation behind her mesmerizing performance art.

In the century-old statues that occupy Cape Town, Sethembile Mzesane didn't see anything that looked like her own reality. So she became a living sculpture herself, standing for hours on end in public spaces dressed in symbolic costumes, to reclaim the city and its public spaces for her community. In this powerful, tour-de-force talk, she shares the stories and motivation behind her mesmerizing performance art.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Zimbabwe, South Africa and Germany share a common story about the soapstone birds that were taken from Great Zimbabwe in the late 1800s. After Zimbabwe gained its independence all the birds, except one, were returned to the monument. The remaining bird is still currently housed in Cecil John Rhodes Estate in Cape Town. Being a spiritual symbol there's a mythological belief that there will be unrest until it is returned. I'd like to petition a call for anyone who can assist in repatriating this iconic bird in restoring and preserving Zimbabwe's history.

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About the speaker

Sethembile Msezane

Sethembile Msezane

See speaker profile

Sethembile Msezane deconstructs the act of public commemoration -- how it creates myths, constructs histories, includes some and excludes others.

M. J. Murray | Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013 | Book

Commemorating and Forgetting: Challenges for the New South Africa

This book details the pitfalls of commemorative practice in South Africa. Collective memory is embedded in statues, monuments, memorials, architecture and even art. How do these platforms remember the past and unify the image of a "New South Africa"? In the practice of nation-building some histories become fabricated and indeed erasure becomes a part of collective memory. What stays present is the markers of the landscape is the presence of white domination in the South Africa's "landscape of remembrance."

Sabine Marschall | 2010 | Book

Landscape of Memory: Commemorative Monuments, Memorials and Public Statuary in Post-apartheid South-Africa

With the ushering in of a new democracy, the South African landscape was posed with a new problem: How do we transform the heritage sector in an inclusive way that reflects the demographics of the country? The anti-apartheid government relied heavily on monuments, statues and memorials that create a sense of nation-building. However, not everyone could identify with such symbols of representation.

Graham Harvey | Columbia University Press, 2006 | Book

Animism: Respecting the Living World

Animist thought, as Harvey points out, acknowledges the spiritual agency that layers a material and abstract reality of being and space. Reconsidering concepts such as animism becomes a process of drawing out alternative narratives in postcolonial scholarship that have been erased in history-making. Harvey further reinforces that new Animism names worldviews and lifeways in which people seek to know how they might respectfully and properly engage with other persons.

Shannon Ebrahim | IOL, 2016 | Book

Give Back Zimbabwe's Bird

One of the believed eight soapstone Zimbabwean Birds that was taken from Great Zimbabwe in the late 1800s is still kept in Cecil John Rhodes Groote Schuur Estate in Cape Town. There has been a call to return the remaining bird to Great Zimbabwe.

Learn more

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Zimbabwe, South Africa and Germany share a common story about the soapstone birds that were taken from Great Zimbabwe in the late 1800s. After Zimbabwe gained its independence all the birds, except one, were returned to the monument. The remaining bird is still currently housed in Cecil John Rhodes Estate in Cape Town. Being a spiritual symbol there's a mythological belief that there will be unrest until it is returned. I'd like to petition a call for anyone who can assist in repatriating this iconic bird in restoring and preserving Zimbabwe's history.

Follow Sethembile on Instagram.

Follow Sethembile on Facebook.