Conserving spaces of memory and heritage: The complexities, challenges and politics of the stone wall project at bluestone quarry on robben isalnd

One of the main challenges in critical heritage studies is how to think through the Intersections of maintaining an awareness of the politics of representation while at the same time seeking to implement a practical project of conservation. All too often one outweighs the other and what emerges is either a technical set of guidelines and procedures for Implementation or else an account that only thinks through the relations of knowledge Production. The strength of my research paper is an account that takes on this challenge. The paper is able to give an in-depth account of the disputes over the nature of restoration around the Stone Wall at the Blue Stone quarry on Robben Island and importantly what a project of this nature would entail. The key issue that this paper revolves around are the twin processes of memory making and that of conservation in order to appear as stable and lasting. It is exemplified in the question that I pose: ‘How could they restore the Stone Wall in such a manner that it would be stabilized and stand firm against the forces of the sea and at the same time ensure continuity of memory and history of the fabric by maintaining its authenticity?’. The way this question is approached is that memories are seen to reside within the ex-political prisoners from Robben Island who worked in constructing the wall at the quarry while they were incarcerated. This is expressed through oral testimonies collected as part of a reference group constituted by the Robben Island Museum. The wall is the artefact of authenticity, something that requires stability and is a tangible visible marker of a past. This is expressesed in very conventional heritage terms of tangible / intangible. The paper also demonstrates that the conservation project appeared to have an inherent contradiction: to make the wall that was not well-built appear as instable and in constant movement, but also to ensure stability. On this I argue that ‘this meant that the Stone Wall would not reflect authenticity in absolute/objectivist/historical sense’. The paper also tracks another contradiction that appeared in the conservation process, that of the contests over natural versus cultural heritage. Here I show through the discussions how this played itself out with environmentalists advocating there be as little disturbance as possible. This would have meant largely leaving ‘as is’ but then the structure itself could not be restored in any form. The ex-political prisoners and indeed the museum who were seeking some form of conservation that would ensure the retention of a symbolic marker were not too happy with this approach and advocated some form of intervention to the physical landscape. What the paper then shows in detail is then how this contradiction and the one indicated above played themselves out over the years in meetings, reports, recommendations and a very halting process of implementation. What is really wonderful is the way the paper elaborates upon the conflicts over restoration and its meanings. The detail is telling of the ways that this is not an account of technical processes of value, planning and enactment. Indeed, perhaps the latter word is the appropriate one to describe what the paper argues for– conservation is about performing the authentic (as stable) of what is constantly a shifting state of being that cannot really be conserved.