Statues represent only one side of history. Public art should aid debate, interaction, contemplation and unity

ISPENT last weekend in the Cederberg. I’m one of the lucky ones who can afford to fill up the car, pack it with chops and charcoal and drive to a cottage in the mountains for leisure time. I am acutely aware of the privilege. On Human Rights Day, I hiked along a path, breathing in the peppery scent of pelargoniums. Papery restios rustled as I passed, geckos slipped their tails under rocks. Turning left at a fork, I headed through a bushy copse, past boulders pocked with holes like perfect cup holders. At the entrance to a deep cave, there it was: a San painting of a ship, in red ochre, almost neon. Other paintings adorned the walls: slight figures hunting in procession, a handprint, a stick figure with enormous hands.

I squatted among bobbles of sheep poo and stared at the ship, trying to imagine how strange it must have looked to the observers. Knowing that the arrival of these ships would ultimately result in the destruction of this ancient way of life – a culture wiped out by conquest and colonialism.

In the city, the debate about what to do with the statue of Cecil Rhodes at UCT rages on. Protesters have chucked faeces at it, and I can’t help feeling there’s money to be made from this trending mode of defiance. Organisers of music festivals could sell the contents of their honey suckers to bands of disgruntled civilians: reclaim, reuse and recycle.

Much has been written and said about the relevance of colonial statues in postapartheid South Africa. Do we consign our dodgy history to a forge? Would moving the statue of Rhodes to a less prominent place be a fair compromise? Or do we leave the figures standing as a testament to our skewed past?

While I was staring at the San paintings, I realised that while they might not have the technique of a Rembrandt or the daring of a Damien Hirst, this was art: an expressive recording of time and space. The paintings were not monuments to one person nor were they hierarchical: handprints were done by teenagers, animals featured strongly and women were depicted. These were conversations by a community, for a community.

The problem with statues is precisely this lack of conversation. They stand resolute, splattered in pigeon poo, and declare: “This is the absolute truth.” They allow no space for interpretation or interaction. They represent only one side of a story: the side of the powerful.

When I was at university in Pietermaritzburg, I would walk past the statue of Queen Victoria in the grounds of the legislature and spit wholeheartedly at her feet. Not only did she smugly represent colonialism, but she represented the patriarchy of our country. Out of all the women that should have been memoralised – Lilian Ngoyi, Ruth First, Victoria Mxenge – all we had was this sour matriarch gazing with disdain in her eyes.

The antidote to our statue problem lies in public art. Statues of individuals are so 1800s. They serve only as handy seats for a quick sandwich, resting places for pigeons and as photographic evidence for tourists to boast that they went somewhere exotic.

The craftsmanship of contemporary statues in this country underlines the fact that this is an outmoded recording of history. At least Queen Vickie looks like the grumpy old frump she was. The 2003 statue of Madiba in Joburg’s Nelson Mandela Square makes him look as though he’s had his head shrunk, while the Nobel laureates at the Waterfront are more hobbits than great men of history.

In contrast, the sculpture at the Nelson Mandela Capture Site near Howick in KwaZulu-Natal transcends crass glorification. By relying on spatial perception, it alters what the viewer sees, depending on where they stand. It comes alive and interacts with the space around it. It asks for a conversation.

One of the solutions to the Rhodes dilemma could be the provision of a space nearby for the installation of temporary artworks which interrogate, interact with

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