Introduction
Watch a virtual panel discussion on historical and present-day anti-apartheid cultural movements from South Africa to Palestine. Moderated by Tings Chak of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and Hannah Priscilla Craig of Artists Against Apartheid, the panel was initially livestreamed via The People’s Forum YouTube. The discussion features Wally Serote (Poet Laureate of South Africa and founding Chairperson of the Medu Arts Ensemble), Judy Seidman (member of the Medu Arts Ensemble), Clarissa Bitar (award-winning Palestinian oud musician and composer), and Niki Franco (podcaster and cultural worker).
It served as the public launch of “Culture as a Weapon of Struggle: The Medu Art Ensemble and Southern African Liberation,” a dossier produced by the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research (which you can download here).
About the Medu Art Ensemble (1979-1985)
Formed in Gaborone, Botswana, in 1979, the Medu Arts Ensemble was a collective of exiled South African artists, musicians, writers, and photographers who used creative expression as a “weapon of liberation” against apartheid. It was led by figures like Mongane Wally Serote and included artists like Thami Mnyele and Judy Seidman. The collective ended tragically following a lethal 1985 cross-border raid by the South African Defence Force.
