This article analyses the multifarious acts of cultural memory taking place in the small, almost hidden, exhibition space of the famous Regina Mundi Church in Soweto, South Africa, home to the photographic exhibition “The Story of Soweto.” Next to the photographs (1950-2010) by well-known apartheid and post-apartheid photographers Jürgen Schadeberg, Jodi Bieber, Bongani Mnguni, and Bob Gosani, the exhibition walls are full of personal inscriptions: written messages, tags, and small poems in a range of writing styles, sizes, and languages, signed and dated, overwriting or supplementing others. Importantly, these inscriptions constitute a preferred motif for visitors’ snapshots: shared with friends and online, these images project the scribbled walls beyond the exhibition space.
This essay takes its cue from actor-network theory (ANT) and its commitment to making objects participants in the course of action, examining the idea that objects, such as images, that leave a trace can act as mediators of memory. Starting from visitors’ appropriations of the exhibition space, the essay sheds light on the different life cycles of memory objects, in particular images, and their diverse mediations. Domestic and international tourists’ photographs and notes, especially their visual encounters with the exhibition, are understood as participatory interactions in the course of memory work. The article’s aim is twofold: introducing an ANT-inspired methodology to the field of memory studies, and mapping a Sowetan memory assemblage based on the idea of memory as a gathering of sights, views, experiences, inscriptions, associations, and mediations.