Slaves bought in Kochi and sold in South Africa by the East India Company

Names of slaves on cotton shirts at the Kochi Biennale

Kochi, January 14, 2019. South African artist Sue Williamson has inscribed, on cotton working shirts, the names of buyers and sellers, prices paid and the date of the transaction for 119 slaves from Kochi. The slaves were sold by the Dutch East India Company in South Africa, in the 17th Century. The shirts are one of the exhibits at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which runs till March 23, 2019.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the East India Company set up trade centers and colonized several parts of the globe. Cape Town in South Africa was one such port and Kochi in India another. Few details are on record of the history of people enslaved in India and brought on company ships to work at the Cape Town Castle and the Company Gardens.

However, deeds of sale in the Cape Town archives do record a name given by a slave master, to each person, together with their age, sex, and place of birth in India. The names of buyers and sellers, prices paid and the date of the transaction are also given. Williamson displays this information in black ink on the cotton working shirts and lengths of cloth sent from India, in a recollection of the original journey.

On September 14, 2018 the garments were dipped in the muddy waters drawn from the Cape Town Castle and hung around the grounds. In December, the garments made a return journey to India, where they were washed clean, in a public laundry in Kochi, a city also colonised by the Dutch East India Company. They were then rehung as an installation in the old colonial building of Aspinwall House, as part of the Kochi Biennale.

The Biennale, titled ‘Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life,’ has two parts: an exhibition and a performance, architectural space. Funded primarily by the government of Kerala, it also has BMW, Cold Stone Creamery,, South Indian Bank and Asian Paints among its corporate sponsors.

Postcards of women fighting apartheid in South Africa

Trained as a print-maker, Williamson also works in installation, photography and video. Williamson is also a writer and her books include Resistance Art in South Africa (1989) and South African Art Now (2009.)

Born in Lichfield, England, in 1941, Williamson immigrated with her family to South Africa in 1948. Williamson trained as a print-maker at the Art Students League of New York in the 1960’s. After five years in New York, she returned to South Africa and started to make work which addressed social change. In the 1970’s and 80’s, Williamson was one of the South African artists who challenged the apartheid government through their work.Notable from the 80s was A Few South Africans, a series of etched and silk-screened portraits of women heroines of the struggle. Postcards of these portraits were widely distributed, and became recognized as one of the icons of the period.

Since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, her works have focused on issues as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, slavery, and immigration. Williamson’s 2016 dual screen video, It’s a pleasure to meet you, is a dialogue between two young South Africans whose fathers were killed by the apartheid police. The subject: Is it possible to forgive one’s father’s killer?

She has also undertaken art projects around the world, as in her Other Voices, Other Cities series, engaging with themes related to memory and identity formation, and how the citizens of the world’s cities relate to their home.

Williamson is represented in many public collections around the world, including the Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

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