Performing dialogical truth and transitional justice: The role of art in the becoming post-apartheid of South Africa

Abstract

In this article I elaborate on the potential role of the arts in the becoming post-apartheid of South Africa. As the close readings of discursive and visual artefacts such as Country of my Skull (Antjie Krog), The Man who Sang and the Woman who kept Silent (Judith Mason), and Indlovukati (Nandipha Mntambo) underline, articulating the memory of trauma in order to be able to create something new is not a linear and finite process but a cycle that has to be reiterated, time and again. Art’s dialogical character, materiality, and medium specificity allow it to perform contested truths and articulate complexities, in such a way as to help constitute new and multilayered communities