Projects & Programmes
Photographer: Jan Greshoff
Commemorations
Commemorations at District Six Museum
The work of the District Six Museum involves advocating for the significance of personal and collective memories in the lives of people. The public face of this finds expression through commemorative events and rituals.
Some of these follow the calendar of national commemorations which have been inaugurated during South Africa’s move towards democracy; others are specifically District Six-focused, being dates of events significant to the life of the community.
10 December,
Museum Birthday
The District Six Museum opened its doors in the old Central Methodist Mission Church at 25A Buitenkant Street on 10 December 1994.
It is apt and fitting with its mission that the Museum was launched on International Human Rights Day, 10 December 1994. It is on this day in 1948 that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted
1994 is a year of great significance to South Africans, as it is the year from which the birth of its new democracy is dated.
The District Six Museum opened its doors in the old Central Methodist Mission Church at 25A Buitenkant Street on 10 December 1994. The exhibition with which it opened was called Streets: Retracing District Six. Described as the ‘archaeology of memory’, it was the culmination of years of planning, dreaming and imagining on the part of the District Six Museum Foundation.
10 December has become a day of annual celebration to mark the Museum’s birthday. It is a day on which friends, partners, members and the general public are invited to bring to a close the programmatic year in a spirit of festivity which honours the collective contributions of the many individuals and organisations that have contributed to its life.
Visit http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ for more information about International Human Rights Day
Visit https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/timeline-20-years-democracy-1994-2014 for more information about South Africa’s transition to democracy