Western Cape Premier’s residence Leeuwenhof   – new exhibitions about slavery.

Our first visit to the residence of the Premier of the Western Cape, Leeuwenhof, on Saturday 7 May 2022. Premier Alan Winde joined us at the end. Mirjam Asmal-Dik, Director of Association For Visual Arts (AVA) Gallery talked about the temporary art exhibition there. While Jaline de Villiers, research curator at Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, talked about the newish “Enslaved Lives” permanent exhibition.

We were based in the new Remembrance Gallery in Leeuwenhof’s former slave quarters, the Bo-Tuin Huys and garden in between. It reflects on the cruelty of slavery here.

Afterwards some of us went to the slave memorial, the 11 granite blocks in Church Sq, by artists Emeritus Prof Gavin Younge and Wilma Cruise, 2008, near the Slave Lodge nearby.