Sue WilliamsonTruth Games: Mrs Jansen – can never forgive – Afrika Hlapo, 1998
The ‘Truth Games’ series reflects on the role of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the country’s process of healing after apartheid. The Commission was set up in 1995 by President Mandela, who named Archbishop Demond Tutu as its chairman, and invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements. Hearings were held across the country. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution, on the condition that they told the whole truth and had acted from political belief, whether on the right or the left.
Sue Williamson kept daily newspapers through the entire process of the hearings, cutting out images and texts relating to the hearings. Each piece in the ‘Truth Games’ series presents a triptych of images drawn from this file: on the left, the accuser, in the centre, an image of the event, on the right, the defender. On the sliding perspex slats which run horizontally across the work, are scraps of texts from the evidence of the accusers and the defenders, giving an epigrammatic summary of the proceedings. However, at no point are all three visible at once. Text drawn from TRC transcripts is printed on sliding slats that obscure parts of the images. Viewers are encouraged to move these slats, revealing or concealing portions of the work as they attempt to piece together a fuller picture, echoing the nation’s collective attempt to uncover the truth.
ANC leader Chris Hani was assassinated in his driveway in 1993. At the hearing, his widow, Limpho, says he was ‘gunned down’, that his killers had ‘shown no remorse’ and concludes the hearings ‘will not bring my husband back’. Right wing activist Gaye Derby Lewis admits that she ‘gave Hani’s address to his killer’, that Hani was ‘third on hitlist’ and that her group’s motive was a ‘plan to create chaos’. By mediating the flood of images and narratives that circulate in public discourse and mass media, Williamson aimed to offer a more focused, reflective space - a space in which to engage with difficult truths, and consider the layers of meaning that often remain hidden.
