This talk examines visual representations of women political activists in South Africa both during and after the struggle against apartheid. The talk will consider, for example, images of women’s individual and collective resistance during the struggle, such as the figure of the “militant mother,” as well as depictions of women in South Africa’s new national culture.
Kim Miller is Associate Professor of Art History and Women’s Studies at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, where she also coordinates the Women’s Studies Program. Her work examines the ways in which artists use visual culture for the purposes of promoting social justice, and the ways in which women use art as a form of activism and empowerment. Her current book examines the extent to which women’s participation in the struggle for democracy is represented and remembered, and in many cases forgotten, in contemporary South African visual culture and commemorative sites.
Sponsored by African American and African Studies and Art Education
