Haroon Gunn-Salie / History after Apartheid

History after apartheid is the first solo exhibition by Haroon Gunn-Salie at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg. The exhibition casts light on transitional contemporary South Africa, defined by the history of colonialism and apartheid in a fractious global context of violence, radicalism and neo-colonialism. Consisting of three thematically related bodies of work, the exhibition elaborates on areas that have come to define Gunn-Salie’s practice: site-specific intervention, public art and dialogue based collaboration.

The exhibition takes its name from a new work in the form of a major interactive installation, a portfolio of two-colour lithographic prints, and a two-channel film. History after apartheid addresses the apartheid security forces’ use of purple dye dispensed from water cannons on armoured vehicles to mark protesters attending mass democracy marches and demonstrations, to identify and arrest those in attendance. The first truck-mounted water cannon was used for riot control in 1930s Nazi Germany. It was re-appropriated by the apartheid security police adding dye to the water stream. This image of purple stained people fleeing police has become iconographic of the mass liberation movement against apartheid and persists throughout the global-south.

The installation makes use of a series of shadow sculptures and timed, interactive lighting drawing parallels between the contexts: pro-democracy protestors in India blasted with purple dye; Ugandan police painting opposition leaders in luminous pink; Bangladeshi lawyers protesting outside the Palace of Justice painted a pale pink; Hungarian police using a combination of blue and green to disperse a pro-Socialist demonstration in downtown Budapest; Turkish teachers coloured bright yellow while marching in Ankra for secular education and South Korean protestors marching against US president George W Bush’s visit to Seoul illuminated in orange. In lower Woodstock, Cape Town, a protest by the Ses’khona Peoples Movement is broken up by a South African Police Service water canon dispensing blue and Israeli police using bright cerulean blue to identify Palestinian stone-throwers in Bil’in.