Cultural heritage in the work of two Xhosa-speaking ceramic artists

As Xhosa-speaking artists working with clay (1) we, Gcinikhaya Dase and Siziwe Sotewu (Fig. 1), are developing a visual narrative style to reflect upon our lived experience and create sequential artworks expressing ideas about aspects of our cultural heritage (2) in contemporary South Africa. We focus on a regional aspect of southern African culture to look for and comment upon its intrinsic value, and do not intend an essentialization (3) or valorization of Xhosa-speakers' experiences and dilemmas at the expense of South Africans from differing backgrounds. We are not sitting back feeling satisfied, but have made enquiries into own backgrounds, which indeed are part of a greater social picture, and thereby have become engaged in looking for what Achille Mbembe calls "a transformative relation with our past as a condition sine qua non of our control over our own future" (Holler 2002:2).

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We were both born in the Eastern Cape and both speak Xhosa, and we also share a hope that by bringing our thoughts and artworks into a public arena--through exhibitions with accompanying text, (4) by being available for discussions, and now by writing this article--ordinary people may be encouraged to express their own ideas about identity and aspects of what goes into making individuals who they are.

Our focus on aspects of Xhosa-speakers' cultural heritage by no means constitutes a yearning for lost roots. We are part of contemporary society and cannot turn back the clock, nor are our visual and verbal statements neutral acts. By publicly claiming aspects of South African life and commenting on them, we raise historically disempowered voices and speak (Spivak 1988), thereby becoming part of an ongoing political movement toward social transformation based on equality and exchange of knowledge as one way of redressing past misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and marginalizations that took place in our country.

As such, after the oppression of apartheid and historical "colonization"--as "a negative entity" (Mbembe 2001:189)--we now actively engage with aspects of our social backgrounds and associated indigenous knowledge systems (5) as part of a complex national process of claiming newly liberated public debate-space for ideas on practices, technology, and ways of thinking that previously were sometimes very private, sometimes ignored, sometimes misunderstood, and largely not written about by practitioners familiar with their intimate nuance and detail.

We think of ourselves as independent individuals in the world rather than circumscribing our identity exclusively to collective abstractions such as "African" or "Xhosa-speaking South Africans" Yet our shared language is a foundation of closeness that is further enhanced by our interest in each other's social background. Cultural heritage hinges to an extent on language-links-that-bind, so in this article we will move from some general considerations of the roles played by language in the formation of our own identity to some conceptualizations of culture that are relevant to transformation in South Africa, and then introduce our own artworks/ micro-narratives, which comment upon aspects of personal concern. Thereafter, we ask whether local visual artists/arts have a place in what Van Robbroeck calls "the vastly arrogant and Eurocentric 'international' high art arena" (2004:47).

The majority of persons resident in the Eastern Cape speak Xhosa as a first language, but neither of us claims to represent all Xhosas, because individual beliefs and practices vary. We are proud to note that former South African president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela grew up in the Eastern Cape and is himself a Xhosa-speaker. Xhosas are part of what are termed Nguni people, who "can be divided into a northern group--the Zulu and Swazi people--and a southern group, which is made up of amaBaca, amaBomvana, amaGcaleka, amaMfengu, amaMpondomise, amaMpondo, abeSotho and abeThembu," this southern group being "the Xhosa nation" (Mandela 1995:4; see Feely 1987, Hammond-Tooke 1981, Hunter 1979, Kuckertz 1990, Peires 1989, 2003, Prins and Granger 1993, and Soga 1930 for more background).

Differences in language usage between these groups and between individuals abound, yet we are deeply linked by shared understandings. (6) Our speech, which involves many clicking sounds, (7) also differentiates us from northern Nguni peoples and other language groups around the world. Thus our Xhosa language and its associated thought processes, despite our internal differences, serves as a significant marker of our identity. Daniel Bell suggests that language is expressive "of a certain way of seeing things, experiencing and feeling, determinant of particular outlooks on life" (1993:158-9), and thus, to the extent to which these aspects become loaded into language, (8) this is another commonality that contributes to our identities.