The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

sought to contest the tendency for history in the public domain to be narrated mainly
through ‘great lives of resistance and reconciliation’.
Cell Stories made use of both “memories and mementoes” of ex‐prisoners for the narration
of lives. Thirty‐nine stories were told in thirty‐nine cells. By being wired to a multi‐level
CD system, the old prison intercom system was reconfigured as the means of activating
oral histories of prison lives at the push of a button. Those cells that were not wired up for
sound made use of written texts displayed on cell walls. According to curator Ashwell
Adriaan, stories had been found which were “personal to individual prisoners”. The
curators were also careful to present “a balance” from different political organisations to
which prisoners belonged. With this exhibition, two years of research and collection had
culminated in a “unique record of the prison’s history”, one that served to challenge any
idea of “a homogeneous prisoner community”. 228 And it was significant that this critical
engagement emanated from within an institution which itself constructed the hegemonic
discourse of heroic leadership.
As Cell Stories opened on Robben Island in late 1999, it remained to be seen how the
management of RIM would manage the cultural politics of this exhibition. Its launch and
unveiling to the public coincided with an intention to lengthen island tours in time for the
summer’s peak visitor season. From November 1999, tours to Robben Island were
intended to be an hour longer, offering more options, more spaces and more time to
reflect. In this visiting system, it seemed that Cell Stories was seen as part of the creation of
such ‘greater options’ in a pluralist exhibition system, which sought to enlarge the story of
Robben Island. It also seemed that the creation of a new entranceway to Cell Stories from
B‐Block served to suggest a single narrative. However, the importance of Cell Stories
extended beyond this. It demonstrated that it was difficult to contain images of history
and heritage at Robben Island within a bounded and controlled framework, determined
by the prison experiences and narrated lives of political leaders. Cell Stories signified the
228 Interviews with curators, Ashwell Adriaan and Roger Meintjes, cited in Ciraj Rassool, ‘Stories of life
sentences’, Mail and Guardian, 26 November to 2 December 1999. See this article for a detailed
description of the Cell Stories exhibition.
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