Fourteen Stations of the Cross
is an exhibition and limited-edition `book object’ or `artist's book’ which
explores the initial journey or pioneer period of Christianity into the
interior of southern Africa. It is informed by the first fourteen mission
stations that were established between 1736 and 1813 in South Africa and the
southern region of Namibia across the Gariep (Orange) River. Although the
title of the book makes a direct reference to the popular Roman Catholic
devotional Stations of the Cross that commemorates the passion and death of
Christ (where each station or `halting place' stands for an event which
occurred during Christ's passion and death at Calvary), there is no direct
correspondence between the devotional Stations and the fourteen mission
stations. Instead the stations stand as a metaphoric journey or passage
transcending the past and present rather than a devotional journey.
Fourteen Stations of the Cross
comprises three books that are contained in a single slipcase. The
thirteenth-century Roman Catholic hymn the Stabat Mater serves as a
thread that provides a structure to the three books. The first four verses
introducing the four sections of Book One act as a prelude to the fourteen
mission stations that are contained in Book Two, and correspond with the
entrance hymn for the initial prayers of the devotional Stations. Each
station commences with a verse from the Stabat Mater, beginning with
verse 5 (the first mission station at Baviaanskloof/Genadendal) and ending
with verse 28 (the fourteenth mission station at Hoogekraal/Pacaltsdorp). Fourteen Stations of the Cross closes with Book Three where the last two
verses of the Stabat Mater correspond with the farewell hymn for the
concluding prayers of the devotional Stations.
Fourteen Stations of the Cross
is framed against the background of the colonial enterprise in southern
Africa and the ways in which the region was transformed
and `civilised’. The `wild’ and `formless worlds’ of what Europeans saw as
`primitive’ African life lay open to travellers, illustrators, artists,
naturalists, missionaries, hunters, and colonial administrators whose
mission was to awaken and convert what they considered to be a dark and
unrefined world. This systematisation of `formless worlds’ calls up the
image of Adam moving through his domain, mapping, classifying, picturing,
and naming. David Livingstone was indeed
one of the `Adams' of the British empire in southern Africa, `penetrating'
and opening up new regions to the process of civilisation, trade and
commerce, and with the other explorers, prepared southern and central Africa
for Cecil John Rhodes' dream of British colonial expansion stretching from
the Cape to Cairo. The Christian church cannot, therefore, be
separated from the broader discourse of colonial political and economic
imperialism. To secure its power and to ensure its survival as 'the one true
religion', Christianity had to create its antithesis, a world of darkness,
and it was Africa that was to become the representative of the antithesis by
means of which Western Christianity defined itself during the nineteenth
century.
Fourteen Stations of the Cross
approaches the initial journey of Christianity into the
interior of South Africa as an allegorical narrative of redemption,
reconciliation and healing. The book explores the paradoxical and ambiguous
interplay between histories, textures and nuances where the interaction
between images and text offer the opportunity to create a rich variety of
compound meanings through playful and interactive poetic interactions.
