Lives of Marikana, Connections & Continuities – an exhibition commemorating the 2012 Marikana massacre

11–19 August 2022
Open daily 10 am–5 pm | Daily walk-in tours at 1 pm

The 16th of August 2022 marks ten years since the Marikana massacre, the day when 34 mine workers were massacred by the South African Police Service (SAPS) for demanding a living wage of R12 500 and better working conditions. 

Their demands reverberated across the country, sparking waves of discontent and rebellion in workplaces and communities. The massacre highlighted the rupture of the post-apartheid social order and brought to the fore fissures in the social pact, which is characterised by continuities in the regimes of exploitation and inequality. The massacre was a gross injustice. The spirit of Marikana has reverberated and inspired workers across the country to make similar demands. At the University of Cape Town, workers continue to resist low wages and neoliberal policies that render them disposable and peripheral to the academic project.

In On Photography, Susan Sontag makes salient the power of photographs, a power that goes beyond the mere representation of an object/subject, suggesting that in “teaching us a new visual code, photographs enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe”. This is because photographs are not only a grammar, they are an ethics of seeing. Therefore, the photographs in this exhibition serve as an archive, yes, but they also afford us a moment to take collective ownership and therefore responsibility for Marikana and the exploitative practice embedded in neoliberal institutions.