Mapping Sites of Memory: The Sobukwe Letters

On the eve of Sharpeville Massacre Day, Mapping Sites of Memory: The Sobukwe Letters turns to the prison correspondence of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe through a public reading and conversation in the gallery space.

Drawn from Lie on Your Wounds: The Prison Correspondence of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, edited by Derek Hook, the program revisits Sobukwe’s letters written during his years of imprisonment. In them, the political figure often remembered through history books appears as husband, father and friend, writing to Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe and to journalist Benjamin Pogrund with tenderness, conviction and moral clarity. The letters reveal the intimate language of a life lived under surveillance and confinement while remaining committed to the idea of liberation.

The gathering unfolds alongside the exhibition Lives, Voices, Struggle: An Exhibition of Human Rights in a Divided World, curated by Bandile Gumbi and Loyiso Oldjohn and currently on view at the Market Photo Workshop Gallery and Gallery 1989 in Newtown. Drawing from the archives of the Market Photo Workshop, the exhibition reflects on land, migration, women’s lives, LGBTQIA+ rights and youth development, tracing how struggles for dignity unfold across everyday life.

Within this visual environment, the letters enter as another form of archive. If the photographs document the public terrain of struggle, Sobukwe’s correspondence reveals its interior life: love sustained across distance, family held together through writing, and political thought sharpened in isolation.

Two performers under the tutelage of Monageng "Vice" Motshabi will read (perform) selected passages from the correspondence, followed by reflections from Ayanda Mabulu, Thembinkosi Goniwe, Dr. Refiloe Lepere and Dr. Wanelisa Xaba. The conversation is moderated by Lerato Kuzwayo and will be open to audience discussion.