Visual Arts of the Armed Struggle in Southern Africa.

The visual arts were fully represented within the culture of liberation that flourished within South Africa’s liberation movements. However, relatively little has been written about visual arts representing the armed struggle. This paper aims to explore the visual arts created around the armed struggle; and begin to position this within a broader understanding of the culture dynamics that emerged as part of Southern Africa’s liberation movements, and the armed struggle in particular. Most scholars agree that music, poetry and dance were integral cultural expressions within the liberation movements; styles often developed within military camps, then were adopted throughout ‘liberated zones’. In contrast, military structures provided little or no space to practice the visual arts. Active military personal had little time or resources to create visual artworks, no storage and exhibition space, and little access to reproduction or distribution. Visual representation of fighters - both in photographs and realistic portraits - could create a security risk if taken by the enemy. Unlike music and writing, most visual art of the armed struggle was therefore produced within the mass movements, and in solidarity movements supporting the armed struggle. This paper discusses direct (in some cases personal) experiences of problems confronting visual artists of the armed struggle; and solutions artists found for these. It places the failure to recognize the visual art of the armed struggle within a broader failure to explore the integration of armed resistance with cultural practice and belief in the struggle for democratic societies in Southern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]