South Africa’s turbulent and traumatic past magically (think Madiba Magic!) evolved into a free and democratic society that is applauded the world over. Only fitting, then, that South Africa should play host to its own world-class Freedom Park, based in Pretoria.
Our vision really is to become an icon for humanity and freedom, and we do this to preserve and honour the memory of those who sacrificed their lives for the freedom that we enjoy today,” said Dr. Jane Mufamadi, CEO of the Freedom Park.
“Most of the work that we do here is focused on preserving this memory, but we also want to ensure that the background is relevant to present as well as future generations. Our slogan is ‘interpreting the past, reflecting in the present and imagining a future’, and that’s because we see a connection between the past, the present and the future, while we preserve the historical memories and the heritage of a country.”
The Park also runs a number of programs that serve to reflect the current challenges being experienced by South Africans. Situated on Salvokop in Pretoria on a stunning piece of land with wonderful landscape views, the Park offers dramatic and relaxing spaces for visitors to enjoy during their time at Freedom Park. The Park has also made a major effort to be part of the digital world.
“We have created a program called the discussion forum within our website, where there is a section where anyone can raise a question or a topic and get people to discuss in terms of our history, our heritage, and where we are as South Africans. Our tour guides don’t just lead you around the precinct… they are storytellers, and this is important because storytelling is a participatory process. There are no spectators. We’re all part of the story being shared.”
The museum section is equipped with state-of-the-art technology to aid in the storytelling, with touch screens to encourage interactivity and touch, which is what Dr Mufamadi highlights as being so important to drawing young people into the story and the narrative.
“The children love it a lot, but we are also always looking to engage with our elders, and we recently had a dialog where we reflected on various issues and we allowed the elders to state their view first, after which the young people also shared their views and perspectives. It created a wonderful intergenerational mix and experience.
“If an elder comes and as they walk around, they want to share their experiences and add value to the story, we have a recording booth where we engage with them. So it really is a living museum, a living memorial, where we keep on adding, improving on the story and the content.”
The museum celebrates South Africa’s heritage and serves as a centre of knowledge aimed at deepening the understanding of the nation, including a memorial decorated with a list of the names of individuals killed in the South African Wars, World War I, World War II as well as during the turbulent years of apartheid conflict. There are also numerous long and short videos that visitors can enjoy and learn from, including documentaries, short films, short stories and even some animations, all of which have been created at the Park from their vast research archives.
“When we conceptualised Freedom Park, our aim was that the content must inform the container… the content being the storyline, but the container being the story itself. If you look at our museum design, it symbolizes a big boulder or a big rock and it’s actually one of the biggest copper buildings in Africa, and there was a deliberate effort into design it in such a way that, with time, it will rust and blend in with the environment.”
There are large open spaces to enjoy, from the Memorial building to the Wall of Names, the Garden of Remembrance. The Park caters beautifully for anyone who loves the indoors as well as for people who love the outdoors, and its garden spaces features uniquely South African and indigenous fauna and flora.
“There is a project that we are working on now which we are going to launch in a big way shortly. It’s our Pan African archives, which are dialogic and digital. These are digital archives where we are archiving and documenting information related to the resistance and liberation heritage, including, obviously our culture and spiritual diversity. We already have some of the full and complete collections that we are going to launch as part of launching the Pan African archives.
“We are very excited about that, and we are part of the University of California’s digital ephemera project, which is also digitising and putting the stories into a larger platform for the consumption of larger audiences.”
The Park will also soon be launching their Gala of Leaders, which will honour more than 14 national, continental and international leaders.
“These are leaders who inspired our understanding and the concept of Freedom and humanity, whom we feel have influenced the liberation struggle and the Freedom that we have through their support, but also through the works they did within their own countries that inspired many South Africans to keep on fighting.”
At present 76% of visitors to the Park are local, while the rest are spread across an international audience, but the largest number of post-covid of international visitors have been from the USA and Germany, overtaking China, which had earlier drawn the greatest amount of foreign interest.
“One critical issue, of course, is the evolving nature of technology, and we will keep on improving to ensure that, as technology advances, we also move with the time in order to reach the wider audience. As the same time, we understand the important of continuing to evolve in terms of the dialogs. We want Freedom Park to be the lesson point. We want the leadership of that time to come to Freedom Park to learn about how we went about resolving our conflicts, eventually starting with conflict and armed struggle, but eventually using dialog as a tool for resolving our conflict.
“We would love Freedom Park to become a reference point, and that makes it relevant across generations, but we have also launched what we call Community Engagements. We want Freedom Park to be the center of communities. We want to take Freedom Park to the people, because we realise that not everybody will be able to visit. While it is our dream that at least South Africans, once in their lifetime, should visit Freedom Park, but where that is impossible, we want to take Freedom Park to the people.”
Their plan is to have a mobile exhibition that can be taken to communities, and Dr. Mufamadi and her team are working with religious communities as well as schools and traditional leaders.
“Traditional leaders are the custodians of our heritage and culture, and we believe they need to be part of the sustenance of Freedom Park,” adds Dr. Mufamadi, who has been involved with the Park since its earliest days as the Head of Heritage and Knowledge Department, which was then all the museum’s exhibitions were first conceptualised.
“I feel proud that we have managed to make Freedom Park a centre for dialog, where, through emphasis, of various government institutions, communities, and traditional leaderships, they will be able to utilise Freedom Park as their home, because this is what we should be about. Anyone should look at Freedom Park and identify with it. And we’re beginning to see the fruits of that investment.”
