Revolutionary Love: Liberation movements and legendary love affairs

The kind of love that I was interested in, that my characters long for intuitively, is the only kind of love that could liberate them from that horrible legacy of colonial violence. I am speaking about decolonial love. – Leanne Simpson

I stumbled across the exhibition Revolutionary Love by chance. Entering Studio Gallery 2 at the Rhodes University School of Fine Art I had readied myself for a student group exhibition — a cacophony of mediums and concepts, long and tedious artists statements and maybe one or two really inspired works.

Instead, in a little corner room towards the front of the gallery a long white cloth draping from the ceiling catches my eye.

Intimate images are suspended, a couple more on the wall — Mandela leans in to kiss Winnie on the cheek, Robert and Zondeni Sobukwe meet our gaze, hands folded together in warm embrace.

Taking the format of a research installation conceptualised by Tamara Guhrs and Stacy Hardy, Revolutionary Love maps the connections between liberation movements and legendary love affairs.

Love letters, excerpts from Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, handwritten notes, drawings and archival images reveal both harsh and tender moments within the decolonial struggle.

“Dearest Alieda” reads a letter dated June 27th, 1959 and signed by Che Guevera, “I have attached a list of presents.

They told me in Rome that the Christian martyrs always carried gifts with them to appease the lions…” The letter concludes; “A small hug so that you don’t become too unaccustomed, greetings to all.” Through both large and small gestures, the exhibition excavates cultural memory and offers viewers fragments that allow a fuller and more embodied understanding of the history of liberation, taking seriously the role of women and partners of famous revolutionaries in the struggle.

Audre Lorde, of course, speaks of love as survival while Sylvia Wynter provokes; “the rule is love”.

Revolutionary Love is staged as a prelude to the play, The Drowning Eye, which seeks to explore stories of love within revolutionary movements.

Written in 1949 by Frantz Fanon while he was still a student and after he had just met his spouse Josie, the play is an unconventional meditation on the powers and possibilities of love as resistance, described by production as “Part love poem, part surrealist narrative, and part philosophical treatise ”— an attestation to the force of love.

The School of Revolutionary Love — a collaboration between Flying House, Windybrow Arts Centre, The Market Lab, together with the Kwasha theatre company will bring The Drowning Eye to life through three performances on June 30 at 2pm, July 1st at 4pm, and July 2nd at 6pm

The exhibition, Revolutionary Love, is on view at the Rhodes University School of Fine Art | Studio Gallery 2 until the 3rd of July.