The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

discovered heritage constructions of life histories after their production, I have at times
and to varying degrees participated in the processes of their construction and initial
reception.
This occurred in at least four ways. At Robben Island, discussions I held with the
curators of the Cell Stories exhibition at the end of 1999 led to me being asked to write a
strategic review of the exhibition for publication. At the Nelson Mandela Museum in
2000, I was asked to intervene as a SAHRA Councillor on aspects of the management
of the site of Nelson Mandela’s birth at Mvezo, which had been a cause for concern. At
UCT, I was asked to assist with the guest list for a special ceremony to name a
university square after black woman resistance leader, Cissie Gool. Finally at the
District Six Museum, I took part in discussions that influenced some of the depictions
of political biography in Digging Deeper through portraiture and the design of
exhibition panels.
At Robben Island in 1999, as Cell Stories was being prepared, I had the opportunity to
hold discussions with curators Ashwell Adriaan and Roger Meintjes about the ideas
that informed their research and exhibitionary strategies. In a fruitful exchange it had
emerged that strong calls had been made inside RIM and among ex‐political prisoners
for a broader focus on political imprisonment, and not merely on the prison experience
of political leadership in B Section. RIM had initiated a research project which was also
a collecting project of prisoner artifacts and life histories. In a review article
commissioned by the curators, which was published in the Mail and Guardian, I wrote
about the exhibition and project as a whole, arguing that it represented a significant
intervention in the cultural economy of Robben Island, marking a departure from
hegemonic heritage interpretations and posing challenges for the narratives of political
imprisonment which the Museum constructed. I have restated these arguments about
Cell Stories in Chapter Four.
505