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unravelling stories of the Blue stone Quarry in Robben Island

the blue stone quarry: knykplyn
00:00 / 01:27

A story of patience and resilience

“Rhetorical spaces carry the residue of history upon them...to characterise Robben Island as a rhetorical space is to emphasize the intectricably intertwined cultural, historical, and material geographies that make Robben Island significant as communicative event” R,Mountford. Robben Island was a place of hardship and struggle without dimeaning the horrid spaces that the prisoners went through, I would like to bring forward the stories that are missing. Class struggle- the habitual movement that many women wentthrough in daily lives to feed their community. Ihave used the action of knyplyn, as a way to express all struggle of this time- including the struggle of women [which is not documented to see]. Stitching the representation of ideas of creating equality in the representation of the struggle that some parts of society go through and went through. Robben Island is a good place to have this represented as it is seen as a beacon of our history [Rhetorical space]. Todays context, our generation is faced with alot of things to question- how we saw society, and how this will shape how our society runs today.

situated between a shipwreck and blusetone quarry. this space is infamous to the ex-political prisoners of Robben Island for the torturous labour knyplyn, knyplyn (chipping stone to gravel, to dust) this was one of the torturous tasks given to the ex prisoners who mined at the blue stone quarry

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