The Man Who Sang and the Woman Who Kept Silent

The “Blue Dress”, one of the signature works of the CCAC, relates to the telling of stories of trauma, but also to the search for, and meaning of, truth. The executions of two anti-apartheid movement cadres by the security police, Harold Sefola and Phila Ndwandwe, as described at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), inspired the artist to make this artwork.

Harold Sefola was electrocuted with two comrades in a field outside Witbank. As a dying wish he requested to sing ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’, now part of the national anthem of South Africa. His killer said: “He was a very brave man who believed strongly in what he was doing.” The braziers stand as a representation of Sefola's flame that was forcefully put out.

Phila Ndwandwe, an Umkhonto we Sizwe general, was shot by security police after being apparently kept naked and tortured in an attempt to make her inform on her comrades. It was also believed that she used a plastic bag to cover herself and preserve her dignity. When the artist heard Ndwandwe’s story through a radio newscast, she collected discarded blue plastic bags and sewed them into a life-sized dress. On the skirt of the dress, she then inscribed a poem to Ndwandwe, writing that plastic bags everywhere are memorials to Ndwandwe’s courage. This blue dress is displayed with the paintings at the Constitutional Court.

Sister, a plastic bag may not be the whole armour of God,

but you were wrestling with flesh and blood,

and against powers,

against the rulers of darkness,

against spiritual wickedness in sordid places.

Your weapons were your silence and a piece of rubbish.

Finding that bag and wearing it

until you were disinterred is such a frugal,

commonsensical, house-wifely thing to do,

an ordinary act...

At some level you shamed your capturers,

and they did not compound their abuse of you

by stripping you a second time.

Yet they killed you.

We only know your story because a sniggering man

remembered how brave you were.

Memorials to your courage are everywhere;

they blow about in the streets

and drift on the tide

and cling to thorn bushes.

This dress is made from some of them.

Hamba kahle. Umkhonto.

Upon the production of two additional plastic dresses in 2016, the artist added burn marks on one of the new dresses, using a magnifying glass, in order to signify the never-ending task of truth-seeking, as embodied of the Constitutional Court, adds another layer of meaning to the artwork.