No pedestals, please — we are just people
Dali Tambo heads the Long March to Freedom project, which aims to create 400 life-size bronze statues of SA’s heroes. Currently at 100 statues, this monumental pantheon is already the largest exhibition of its kind in the world. “These multi-generational statues of liberty are a national keypoint site in the battle of public memory,” says Tambo.
Funding is urgently needed to complete the mission. “A three-year drought in funding as a nonprofit institution has brought the project to the cusp of imminent closure. We hope visionaries in our public and private sectors will join us on the battlefield of memory and assist us with a flanking manoeuvre of funding, so that this national treasure might win the day,” says Tambo.
“By remembering these South African giants and sculpturally depicting their human form, we will immortalise them and their freedom values.
“Our ultimate goal is to create a procession 400strong, honouring at its core the South African struggle but also featuring Africa’s anti-colonial leaders as well as the world’s greatest freedom fighters, anti-racist and human rights activists.
“None are or will be on pedestals, because although they were the very best of us, most were ordinary human beings who did extraordinary things in their short lives. They must walk among us because they were of us. All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield and the second time in memory.”
The Long March to Freedom bronze statues are at Century City in Cape Town