“Remembrance is a way of holding the past in tension with our present.”
Robert Gibbs (2005: 208 – 209)
“[M]emory acts as a shared crucible of discovery and a distorted lens through which history and theatre engage with the past.”
David Dean, Yana Meerzan & Kathryn Prince (2015: 1)
7.1. Making a connection
How much of who we are is linked to those who have gone before us? This is a question I ask at the beginning of Our Footprints, “How much of what we can consider to be our history is based on our DNA?” (Jenkins, 2017: 166; original italics). In my exploration of the history presented in the Bergtheil Museum, I was struck with the dilemma of how to negotiate narratives that are not linked to my own „heritage‟. The narratives on display in the museum are predominantly related to German settler history in the area of Westville, Durban. As I state in the introduction to the performance, “I am not German. My surname, Jenkins, is actually Welsh although I don‟t really know much about my Welsh ancestry. German settler history is not my history and some of these people recorded her are not my ancestors” (Jenkins, 2017: 1). The question arose as to how I, as a theatre practitioner and researcher, could depict narratives to which I do not have an ancestral link.67 This conundrum, however, provided an interesting point from which to navigate the journey. Many of those coming to the museum themselves may have no direct connection to the histories on display, particularly in a country like South Africa where so many cultures and historical narratives are present. Nevertheless it is possible to find an association/s with a narrative or a group of people that are not necessarily part of our own cultural, religious or racial background. Connections are not reliant on a direct ancestral link.
In my interrogation of This Accursed Thing (Jackson & Kidd, 2007) as one of my case studies, I found that the devisers of this piece had a similar predicament to navigate, given its focus on the
66 The referenced page numbers are the original numbers from the Our Footprints script. The page numbers in the upper right hand corner of Appendix 1 refer to these original numbers.
67Even though I am not of German decent, I acknowledge that I have more connection as a white South African to histories of white settlement, as depicted by Bergtheil Museum, than some other visitors may have.
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slave trade. How could all the different people who visit the Manchester Museum68 make a connection to such a vast and complex narrative? The slave trade (and the many facets that make up the trade) forms a significant part of the history taught in many schools and universities in many different contexts. I myself have studied it on numerous occasions, mainly in historical and literature studies, at various stages of my academic career. The slave trade has been analysed, studied, discussed, critiqued, and written about in many different contexts, with the result that the narrative has become complex and multilayered. And yet, even with all that discussion and engagement, some stories remain unspoken. Exhibits A and B attempt to explore and address some of these silences, as noted in Chapter 6. However, it can be difficult to negotiate the „grand treatment‟ of the slave trade as well as the many smaller narratives that form part of this history/s. Museum theatre makers then need to navigate the possibility that some audience members may feel removed from the narrative/s. The Manchester Museum, in which the performance of This Accursed Thing took place, was specifically commemorating the 200th anniversary of the “abolition of the Slave Trade Act”69 when the piece was performed in 2007 (Jackson, 2011: 13). The city of Manchester has a direct connection to both the slave trade as well as its abolition70 and the performance piece provided an opportunity to explore some of the narratives through performance. Those present at the performance were exposed to multiple perspectives regarding the slave trade so that no one „voice‟ was privileged (Jackson, 2011: 21).
This chapter will explore, through specific focus on memory and its representation, how museums and theatre makers can encourage audience members to make personal connections with past narratives. The case studies of Our Footprints and This Accursed Thing will be drawn upon in this discussion.
7.2. Museums, performance and memory
Museums may be seen as places of remembrance, making the museum a “site of memory”
(Winter, 2010: 312). A site of memory is a place where people “[inherit] earlier meanings”
through learning about and remembering the past (Winter, 2010: 312). These earlier meanings
68 The museum is in the industrial city of Manchester which is situated in the north-western England.
The city was involved in the slave trade mainly through buying cotton from West Indian plantations worked by slaves and then trading the cloth made from the slave-grown cotton for more slaves in Africa (Website 22). The city was also prominent in abolition movements in the late 1700s and early 1800s (Website 22).
69 The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807 by the British government, making it illegal to transport and trade in human beings (Website 22). However, the use of slaves as ‘workers’ in British colonies was only prohibited in 1833 (Website 22).
70 Manchester’s role in campaigning against the slave trade was influential in putting pressure on the government to pass the Act of 1807. Abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, who is a character in This Accursed Thing, addressed the people of Manchester on the issue in 1787, which was a significant moment that increased support for the anti-slave trade movement (Website 22).
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then influence how the person creates new meaning in the present (Winter, 2010: 312).
According to anthropologist Stephen Feuchtwang (2010: 285), “societies don‟t remember”, rather it is institutions, such as museums, that act as places of “transmission”, bringing the past into the present. Collective remembering is often strongly influenced by institutions and while individuals do not simply „stop remembering‟ in the absence of these institutions, collective memory is largely maintained through the presence and preservation of sites of memory.
According to Feuchtwang‟s argument, it is the people71 who “ac[t] in and through these institutions” that remember and “feed them [the stories and memories] into their particular experience” (2010: 285). Memories are thus sustained when they are commemorated beyond those who had “direct experience of events” (Winter, 2010: 313). Sites of memory become places to “remember the memories of others, those who survived the events marked there”
(Winter, 2010: 313), but who are no longer present to remember for themselves. Even though those who are directly connected to the remembered events have passed, people who remember through what American historian Jay Winter (2010: 313) calls “second-order memory”72, are able to make “associations with stories and objects external” (Feutchwang, 2010: 285) to the narratives presented in sites of memories. Through highlighting memory in museums, people can recall and remember the past through personal, present associations even if they are not directly linked to the original memories.
On the other hand, the notion of memory as history has at times been challenged by scholars.
Memory, which is personal and subjective, is often viewed as problematic by historians who believe the traditional archive, with its supposedly objective facts and artefacts, is the authoritative source for authentic historical insight (Reason, 2003: 85). While memories are shaped by multiple factors73, they are integral in making personal connections with the histories on display in museums. These personal connections, and the memories evoked, are explored through the device of the Map of Memories in Our Footprints which is elaborated further in this chapter.
71 The people to whom Feuchtwang (2010) refers to here are not limited to those who work in and/or create sites of memories; rather, all the people who engage with these sites, including the general public, are also involved in sustaining the act of societal remembrance.
72 Second-order memory is a process in which a person who has not directly experienced an event
‘remembers’ it through the “memories of others” (Winter, 2010: 313). In order for the memories to be sustained, they need to be transferred to the next group of people who will continue to commemorate them. Sites of memories are places where this transmission of memories often occurs. However, sites of memories change as the memories themselves, and the way they are perceived, change.
73 Some of these factors include emotional connections to memory, the passing of time, and the context/s in which the memory was made and later recalled.