The Story-Telling Project
The Story-Telling Project is a selection of texts from a book published in 1911 by George Allen and Company, London. It was edited by Lucy Lloyd and contained a small selection of the many thousands of pages of |xam and !kun texts that were recorded in the 1870s and 1880s in Cape Town, South Africa. The languages have since become extinct. Telling these stories is ||kabbo, who was a prisoner from the Breakwater Convict Station, he sacrificed the freedom of his final years to teach Bleek and Lloyd his language and tell them his stories. The aim of the project was to create a digital archive of stories that honours ||kabbo’s legacy.
In response to this archive of stories I share visuals of contemporary Khoi decedents, the videos shown here are responding to the idea of a dying language and are amplifying the power of the Khoi narrative through story telling and creating a space for continuous learning. By use of the images I am highlighting the hidden presences, the ones deemed controversial and who somehow must fight for their voices to be heard. This confronts the audience complacency, forcing them to reconsider basic assumptions about language and dominant narratives.
My intent is to re-look at the colonial epistemological process and lens these stories have been translated, which forgets to embrace diversity by not offering a visual representation of the original |xam and !kun texts. I strongly believe in the view that there needs to multi-lingual interpretations to overcome cultural barriers, to educate, as well as appreciate which is possible through the attempts by those who claim Khoe descent to revive their languages. In a society with entrenched notions of class and race hierarchies, how do we maintain the multiplicity and diversity of cultures where the burden and dominant lexicon of languages continues to exclude and control indigenous cultures who have existed for many years. By juxtaposing voices of the N/UU, I intend to effectively decolonise and re-stablish our understanding of indigenous languages.
I invite the viewer to question if it is possible to decolonise our way of thinking and knowledge assimilation through looking by re-centering and allowing these voices to take up space. I invite the viewer to imagine the voice speaking here being able to exist without mediation and scrutiny.
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Curated by Xola Mlwandle
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Video credits: www.thelinguists.com and EWN
Image credits for collage:
Portrait of ouma Griet Seekoei shot by Hammond Robin for NatGeo Magazine.
Screenshot of notebook page in the Bleek and Lloyd collection and process of translation from Translating Handwritten Bushman Texts by Kyle Williams and Hussein Suleman, UCT.
Khoegowab translations; screenshots by Denver Toroga Breda.