Exhibition tracks art’s struggle against apartheid

The work of Apartheid-era South African black artists and the International artists that supported their struggle for democracy forms the basis of a powerful new exhibition opening at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery on Thursday 26 May. The exhibition, Home and Away: A Return to the South , showcases artworks that reveal a new side of South Africa's struggle towards equal rights. It brings together works from two collections, the Ifa Lethu Foundation and the Art Against Apartheid Collection, to explore the similarities and differences between art created by an oppressed people and work made by outsiders expressing support for them. It is the first time that either collection has been seen in a large-scale international show. During the apartheid years in South Africa, many black artists expressed their feelings about the adversity they faced through powerful artworks. At the time, many of these artists were ignored by museum and corporate collections. Yet fortunately, artworks still made their way into private collections where they were stored for posterity and are now being repatriated back to South Africa through the Ifa Lethu Foundation ('Our Heritage') in an attempt to restore otherwise lost artistic statements.