Sue Williamson | There's something I must tell you

In 1982, Sue Williamson spent much of her time in Crossroads, a Cape Town community marked for destruction by the Apartheid state. It was there that she first encountered the image of Elizabeth Paul—a Xhosa faith healer whose faded photo adorned the walls in many homes. This repetition marked Elizabeth as an important figure in the community, a person to be honoured and remembered. 

Williamson responded with a series of etched portraits—with the first in the series, a portrait of Elizabeth Paul. Each was a tribute to a woman who inspired others through her leadership, often in the struggle for liberation: Helen Joseph, Winnie Mandela, Annie Silinga, Mamphela Ramphele. Their names are familiar today, but in the eighties, they were largely invisible. Williamson’s work sought to give them visibility, and to honour them. 

Her influences were many. Renaissance portraiture offered structure; the inventive frames of Crossroads homes provided texture. But more than technique, it was the desire to make these women known that shaped the work. In mass producing and distributing postcard versions of the portraits, Williamson made the series portable, ensuring that these stories could travel, unbound by gallery walls. 

In societies shaped by trauma, communication is not always easy—speaking about the past can be fraught, and listening is not without its challenges. This room brings together the voices of two generations—women who once fought for freedom, and their granddaughters, who now navigate its complexities. Through a series of six exchanges, moments of inquiry emerge: “Why were you jailed?” “Do you feel your sacrifice was worth the country we have today?”. Two of the grandmothers were part of the A Few South Africans series:  Caroline Motsoaledi and Amina Cachalia. All of them grew up under apartheid, unlike their granddaughters, the ‘born free’ generation.

The visual language of the installation reflects their exchanges. On the left, pages from a family photo album turn slowly, offering glimpses of a life shaped by resistance and resilience. In the centre, full-length portraits—one still, the other in motion—present both continuity and change. To the right, an interaction unfolds between the two women, a meeting of perspectives that does not seek resolution but acknowledges the difficulty of speaking, and being heard. Rather than prescribing how stories should be told or received, this work invites reflection on the complexities of inheritance—on what is shared, what remains unspoken, and the ongoing effort to understand.

In this room, a focussed selection of Sue Williamson’s works traces the trajectory of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid and its aftermath. Since the late 1970s, her practice has critically engaged with the lived experiences of individuals affected by systemic oppression, offering nuanced perspectives that complicate dominant historical narratives. Through these works, Williamson foregrounds the intimate dimensions of history, often focussing on individual lives, and encouraging a deeper engagement with questions of memory, justice, and reconciliation. 

In The Modderdam Postcards, Williamson transforms sketches of forced removals into postcards, offering a quiet yet poignant record of lives displaced by the state. These works move beyond documentation to serve as fragments of personal histories, capturing the intimate violence of apartheid. In later works like For Thirty Years Next to his Heart and Cold Turkey, Williamson turns her focus to symbols and mechanisms of control, and the process of national reconciliation. 

In A Tale of Two Cradocks, Williamson contrasts tourist representations of South Africa with the lived experience of Nyameka Goniwe, widow of slain activist Matthew Goniwe, revealing the persistent tensions in the nation’s evolving narrative. Her ongoing series, All Our Mothers, honours the overlooked roles of women in the struggle, while A Chair for Ray Alexander serves as a reminder that activism requires both action and care. These works collectively reflect Williamson’s exploration of South Africa’s past, present, and future, inviting us to reflect on how history is remembered, reckoned with, and reshaped.

At the centre of the room, a skeletal obelisk suspends history in a state of revision. Unlike the imposing permanence of traditional monuments, its delicate frame suggests a memorial open to additions, extracts from publications, notes, and reinterpretations. Its title, Towards Another World, is taken from a memorial to British soldiers who died in the Anglo-Boer War. Around it, Colouring In, The Diaries of Lady Anne B, Stories for Children, Postcards from Africa, and Monument l and ll unfold as fragments of memory— archival traces, personal reflections, and reimagined visuals that consider how history is recorded, remembered, and shaped by the lasting influence of colonising nations of Europe in Africa.

Towards Another World engages with archival imagery from the Anglo-Boer War, offering glimpses into the tensions between imperial ambition and lived experience. Colouring In layers a children’s colouring book with stark wartime photographs from the same war, encouraging reflection on how histories are framed and absorbed across generations. The Diaries of Lady Anne B transforms colonial-era diary entries into textured monoprints, tracing the complexities of personal observation within larger imperial narratives. In Postcards from Africa, colonial-era photographs are reimagined as drawings, in which signs of habitation remain visible —dwellings, boats, a pile of coconuts — but the people who appeared on the original postcard no longer appear. The absence of the people from the landscape presents an uncomfortable tension from which a series of questions emerge — where are the people who used to live here? What happened to them? 

Much like the obelisk, which traditionally elevates a single narrative, the works gathered in this room challenge such singularity, offering instead a memorial that embraces multiplicity. Here, perspectives often left in the margins—black individuals drawn into service, animals burdened by war, and those caught in the machinery of empire—are given space to be seen and heard.

We are invited to listen-not just to the words spoken, but to the layers of meaning that emerge through the act of listening itself. From the Inside engages with the stigma of HIV/AIDS, opening up a space where personal stories intersect with public discourse. Here, the voices, often marginalised, are foregrounded. Better Lives offers a reflection on displacement, providing a glimpse into the complexities of seeking refuge and the systematic challenges African refugees and migrants face in Cape Town. The narratives presented here are not isolated; they are shaped by the very contexts in which they are shared, inviting us to consider how these stories are received and understood in varying social landscapes. 

Sitting alongside these works, No More Fairytales turns its gaze to the enduring trauma of apartheid, exposing the weight of history on generations who continue to live in its shadow. Through three video works, the past is made present—voiced in testimonies, surfaced in gestures, held in moments of silence, and imprinted onto the fabric of familial memory. 

Other Voices, Other Cities brings together perspectives from cities around the world - Johannesburg, Kraków, Zimbabwe, London, and others. Each city offers a unique context, shaped by migration, urbanisation, and the questions of belonging that accompany them. Why do people choose to live in these cities? What essence could capture each place? These are not questions with definitive answers but rather a framework to explore the nuances of urban life and its animating conditions. As these works sit together, they invite us into a dialogue - between voices, between histories, between places.

District Six, once home to a vibrant and diverse community of around 55,000 people, was declared a "slum" by the apartheid government in 1966, leading to its eventual demolition. This displacement, which began in the early 1970s, disrupted not only the physical landscape but the deep social and cultural connections that had bound generations together. 

In this, the largest room of the exhibition, the works, spanning from 1981 to 2025, engage with the transformation of District Six and its lasting influence on the community and memory. At the centre of this reflection is the Ebrahim family, whose home in Manley Villa on Rochester Road became a focal point for Williamson’s engagement with the consequences of forced removal. It was through the Women's Movement for Peace that Sue met Naz Gool-Ebrahim, a community leader whose personal history intertwines with the larger story of the area's destruction. 

For this retrospective, the new installation Don’t Let the Sun Catch you Crying expands on the conversations initiated by earlier works. The six chairs, once again provided by the Ebrahim family, remain central to this re-imagined space. In collaboration with Idrissa Ebrahim Shah and former residents, the work engages with the enduring memory of District Six, bringing its history into the present through the collective voices of those who have lived it.

Displayed throughout this room are materials from Sue Williamson’s archive, offering a snapshot of her studio’s working environment. T-shirts, posters, stickers, postcards, and leaflets produced during South Africa’s liberation struggle are shown alongside letters, photographs, and other documents, each capturing moments of exchange and collaboration. These materials, in their various forms, highlight the practical and organisational aspects of studio practice, providing insight into the processes behind the visible outcomes of her work.

Within the broader framework of the retrospective, this room provides a closer look at the material traces that accompany and extend the visible aspects of Williamson’s practice. The arrangement of objects and documents around a timeline of historical and personal events prompts consideration of the relationship between studio processes, public dissemination, and engagement with historical and social contexts.

A key element of the display is a wall cabinet featuring Curriculum Vitae, a work made up of 65 snow globes collected from exhibition venues worldwide since 1992. Each globe represents a specific site tied to a moment of public engagement, creating a physical record of movement and presence across multiple exhibition contexts. These snow globes underscore the interconnectedness of the work’s journey through various spaces and audiences.

In Messages from the Moat, 1,400 glass bottles act as vessels for memory, inscribed with the names and sale prices of enslaved men, women, and children traded at the Cape of Good Hope. Floating in the atrium, these bottles bear silent witness to a painful history, marking not only the commodification of lives but also the erasure of dignity. They speak to the human cost of empire—an enduring reminder of what has been overlooked.

In contrast to the fine china, glassware, and portraits displayed in museums in The Netherlands and Cape Town—emblems of empire’s material legacy—Williamson urges us to consider their true cost. The faint traces of paint within the bottles suggest a quiet act of rebellion: enslaved individuals, in defiance, casting their masters’ possessions into the water, disrupting a narrative of ownership.