Un/Settled is a project that explores white South African histories, privileges, and reflections on identity. Every nation has a past and must confront it in order to see the present clearly, and to imagine a different future.
‘I grew up just as apartheid came to an end. Ever since starting primary school, I have been told that I am a child of the rainbow nation. The end of apartheid was signalled by a great gesture of forgiveness and hope, one that must have seemed at the time, to transcend the decades of violent oppression. Many white people seem to have taken the release of Nelson Mandela, and the platforms for redemption and healing under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as absolution. It was not absolution.”
As South Africa struggles to come to terms with persistent social and racial inequality, the project seeks to urge participants and audiences to examine their historical and future roles within a landscape marked by deep social scars.
Text written in collaboration with Olivia Rose Walton
Project by Sydelle Willow Smith