The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

political and personal lives and to processes of prior biographic mediation. There had
to be possibilities in exhibitions of depicting lives as productions.
The curatorial consequence was that the Fischer image of Tabata that hung on
transparent trevira cloth as part of a reconceptualised gallery of “translucent” portrait
images, found its way on to the Resistance panel. 11 This time, the image was depicted
in the makeshift frame in which the museum had acquired it to indicate that it was
based on a photograph that had a biography. More critically, the image of Tabata had
been deliberately placed adjacent to an image of Dora Taylor, as a means of indicating
a biographic relationship. It was not long after the opening of Digging Deeper that this
display was the cause of some controversy as some Museum visitors expressed their
objection to this display positioning, and to the implication that Taylor had been
Tabata’s ‘girlfriend’. Others wondered why this depiction seemed to coincide with the
seeming omission of Jane Gool. One person even asked that the exhibition be changed,
and that Dora Taylor be removed from the display and perhaps replaced by Jane
Gool. 12
In choosing to depict the intricacies of the personal and the political and to focus on
biographical production in the case of Tabata and Taylor, the Museum had gone
beyond mere celebration and documentation as the heritage impulse. Nevertheless, for
some the Museum was seen as a hall of achievement for the recognition and
celebration of political contributions, and not as a space of complex, difficult and even
controversial representation. It was this approach to representation that enabled the
Museum to move beyond the safe narratives of political and social history. There is no
doubt that this display has caused hurt for some, and has even been seen as
11 See Jos Thorne’s discussion of the curatorial process of Digging Deeper in her M.Phil Thesis, ‘The
Choreography of Display: Experiential Exhibitions in the Context of Museum Practice and
Theory’, UCT, 2003.
12 Some of these objections, for example from Elma Carolissen, were addressed to me (Letter from
Elma Carolissen‐Essack to Ciraj Rassool, 31 July 2001). My aunt, Minnie Gool, Jane Gool’s sister,
expressed her suspicions that I had been behind the depiction. Others who expressed their
objections included former SOYA member, Gwen Wilcox.
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