From Memory to Marble : The historical frieze of the Voortrekker Monument Part II: The Scenes
The book is a rare case study of the dynamics, processes and shifts around the creation and reading of one of the world’s major monuments, through all the processes of its design and making. The frieze which represents the Great Trek and Voortrekker...
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The book is a rare case study of the dynamics, processes and shifts around the creation and reading of one of the world’s major monuments, through all the processes of its design and making. The frieze which represents the Great Trek and Voortrekker occupation of South Africa (1835-52) is one of the largest of its kind. The key question is how, a century later, were eighteen years of Voortrekker memory transformed into a 92-metre marble frieze?
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From Memory to Marble : The Historical Frieze of the Voortrekker Monument, Part I: The Frieze
The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the ‘Great Trek’ (1835-52) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Forming the concept of the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the...
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The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the ‘Great Trek’ (1835-52) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Forming the concept of the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the country’s socio-political debates in the 1930s and 1940s when it was made. The frieze is unique in that it provides rare evidence of the complex processes followed in creating a major monument. Based on unpublished documents, drawings and models, these processes are unfolded step by step, from the earliest discussions of the purpose and content of the frieze through all the stages of its design to its shipping to post-war Italy to be copied into marble and final installation in the Monument. The book examines how visual representation transforms historical memory in what it chooses to recount, and the forms in which it depicts this. It also investigates the active role the Monument played in the development of apartheid, and its place in post-apartheid heritage.
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