Truth Games: Liezl Ackermann – not a church – Gcinikhaya Makoma

Sue Williamson
Truth Games: Liezl Ackermann – not a church – Gcinikhaya Makoma, 1998
Colour laser prints, wood, metal, plastic and perspex
Work: 84 x 121 x 6 cm

Truth Games highlights the most important cases investigated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Each piece pictures an accuser, a defender, and an image of the event in question. Evidence taken from press reports summarises the accusations and defence. These texts are printed on slats obscuring sections of the work. In order to see hidden parts of the images, viewers must slide the slats across the work to uncover what is beneath. Is the truth finally coming out or is it still hidden? In July 1993, five young members of the APLA - the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, attacked the congregation of St James Church, in Kenilworth, Cape Town, and 11 people died in the gunfire. Marita Ackermann, mother of Liezl Ackermann, was one of those killed. In a confrontation five years later between Liezl and Gcinkhaya Makoma, the only member of the group convicted of the attack, he tells her that although he believed he was helping the struggle, he was sorry about her mother. She answers that she wanted to hear that. In June 1998, the TRC granted Makoma amnesty.