Online event: Archives as Storytelling

VIRTUAL EVENT

Author Richard Conyngham explored South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal’s basement archive, and through that research, was able to construct narratives of six cases of stories of resistance and rebellion from the period loosely known as the “Union years”—between South Africa’s unification in 1910 and the beginning of apartheid in 1948. These are stories of passive resisters, strikers, rebels, and revolutionaries fought back in the streets and in the courts. The result of that work was the illustrated history, All Rise, which was created with a team of South African artists. Join Richard and artist Tumi Mamabolo to explore the ways artists and creative writers can make use of archival materials, to discuss how archives and primary sources can be an effective avenue for creative work, and how the artists and writers filled archival gaps through creative decision-making to construct the stories we read in All Rise.

Richard Conyngham is the author, creative director and researcher behind All Rise. After graduating from the universities of Cape Town and Cambridge, he worked for South African civil-society organizations Equal Education, The Bookery, and Ndifuna Ukwazi, the London publisher Slightly Foxed, and the edtech organization MakeTomorrow. In 2016, Richard collaborated with the Trantraal Brothers to create Safety, Justice and People’s Power, an illustrated companion to the O’Regan-Pikoli Commission of Inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha.

Tumi Mamabolo hails from Polokwane in Limpopo province. He can’t remember a time when he wasn’t avidly drawing and painting, usually a comic or graphic novel from his own imagination. Since graduating with a degree in Information Design from the University of Pretoria in 2020, he has already won two Gold Loerie awards for his animation work. Still in his early twenties, Tumi is a rare talent and by far the youngest of the All Rise contributors.

Interested in exploring more South African history at Interference Archive?

Consider starting your search in one of the following places:

• Subject files about: South Africa; South African Labor Movement under Apartheid; Apartheid
• Poster files about: South Africa (drawer B1); Anti-Apartheid movements in South Africa (drawer B3)
• Large format pamphlets: Africa
• Half-size pamphlets: South Africa