Rare photographs, poetry at SS Mendi exhibition
ABANTU BEMENDI art exhibition, at the Albany History Museum until Saturday.
THE complex meaning of the SS Mendi story is being explored at the Abantu BeMendi visual art exhibition as it brings together rare photographs, documents, poetry and underwater footage of the Mendi wreck.
A hundred years after the sinking of the Mendi, its loss is only now being documented as an important element of South African history.
The exhibition houses different art forms and artefacts, and commemorates the centenary of the sinking of the ship which carried more than 600 mostly black South African troops to the Western Front during World War 1.
Drawn largely from SEK Mqhayi's poem Ukutshona kukaMendi, the exhibition looks at the role the people of the Mendi played in South Africa’s struggle for land, human rights and dignity.
Soldiers on board the Mendi left their homes in rural South Africa to join the war effort on the Western Front.
One of the curators of the exhibition, Dr Lucy Graham, said: “We are very honoured to bring the exhibition to the Eastern Cape, where many of the recruits on the Mendi were from.”
It is believed that 139 of them were from the Eastern Cape.
Graham said the idea to commemorate the centenary of the Mendi was inspired by the untold stories and the discovery of rare photographs which had never been shown.
“The exhibition came about when I, alongside Prof Hugh Macmillan and Prof Xolela Mangcu, decided to curate events around the sinking of the ship.”
It was only after they had begun working with the University of Cape Town that they learnt of its significance in the story of the men on the Mendi.
“We learnt that the lower campus of the university was where the men were billeted and spent their last night on South African soil.”
Buhlebezwe Siwani, Mandla Mbothwe and Hilary Graham are the three artists whose work is on display at the exhibition.
Graham said Siwani and Mbothwe were selected to create works for the exhibition, while Graham had already created work on the Mendi in the early 1990s.
“The photographs were found through archival research, and the artworks were sourced based on the artist’s interest in the Mendi.
“Our team put a great deal of time into presenting the solemn story of the Mendi,” she said.
Interesting pieces like the poem of Reverend Isaac Williams, Dyobha, are among the artefacts recovered for the exhibition. Titled the Death Dance, it is recorded in history books that Dyobha cried out to the dying men as the ship was sinking and said: “Be quiet and calm, my countrymen. What is happening now is what you came here to do . . . you are going to die, but that is what you came here to do . . .” The men are believed to have taken off their boots and stamped the death dance on the deck of the sinking ship.
Graham said the retrieval of the poem was “sentimental to the telling of the Mendi story”.
Another key element is the video footage on display at the exhibition. As you draw near, you are able to hear the sounds of the depths of the Isle of Wight sea where the Mendi sank.
The SS Mendi sank in an estimated 20 minutes, but the excavation and archival of its significant artefacts at the Abantu BeMendi exhibition guarantees that its memory will live on in history books.