by Alisa Ray
My master’s dissertation “Postcards from the Palazzo: Creating an art therapy protocol to address intergenerational perpetrator trauma” (2023) led to the creation and suggested use of a protocol to explore toxic shame, improve self-esteem, and recreate a new sense of self. This protocol emerged from a heuristic arts-based enquiry into an inherited familial relationship with the Apartheid Verwoerd-era government. Specifically, the technique of creating postcards and reflecting on the created image, uncovered valuable insights. It is this practical arts-based technique of engaging with evocative objects that I discuss here, with the intention of applying my research in a museum space.
The way this research topic came about is relevant. Two cohorts of Honours in art therapy students, including myself, were eagerly awaiting final confirmation in December 2022 that the inaugural Master’s art therapy programme would go ahead at the University of Johannesburg. As the first art therapists graduating from a South African university, we would all be breaking new ground with our dissertations. I had already dreamed up possible topics for my Master’s art therapy research: My first degree in the 1990s in African and Asian Art History and Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, reflects my life-long interest in art history. From this time, I was keenly aware of debates around the restitution of artefacts that had been looted during colonialism. In December 2021, after decades of these debates, I was coming across news articles of precious artworks that were finally being returned to their rightful owners. I thought this would be my focus.
The direction of my research changed suddenly, sparked by the outbreak of a serious fire in Cape Town’s Parliament buildings in early January 2022. The fire brought back memories of my step-grandfather Irmin Henkel’s portrait of former Apartheid president, Hendrick Frensch Verwoerd and his painting of the Verwoerd Cabinet that had been stored in a cellar under the National Assembly. Maree (1967) notes that Henkel had the reputation as the “painter of prime ministers” in 1960s Apartheid South Africa. Artworks of an Apartheid figure like H.F. Verwoerd (reviled by many South Africans) are also evocative objects that hold emotive memories and stories of a difficult history with which South Africans are still grappling.
My grappling with toxic shame was not a conscious endeavour. Toxic shame, a feeling of the self being fundamentally flawed, is a deep level of shame that “shapes post-traumatic states” (Dolezal & Gibson, 2022:5). Art therapy has the potential to work with this, in bringing out unconscious and subconscious material through engagement with the image.
I was struck with the realisation that I had all but forgotten about my own family’s historical paintings related to South African history. Had it been far more comfortable for me to focus on artefacts related to victims of historical trauma and their restitution, than to consider artefacts representing the perpetrator’s side? I was intrigued by what inside of me had made me “forget” about the Verwoerd paintings. A literature review on this topic showed a gap in addressing inherited perpetrator trauma in the South African context. There was no specific art therapy related material I could find. The theoretical lens of my self-study had to draw on inherited perpetrator trauma theories from outside of South Africa.
My self-study included some of these processes: Figure 1 shows a photograph of a plaster cast of a Benin Queen mother’s head that was displayed in my step-grandfather’s studio, the “Palazzo”, in Waterkloof, Pretoria. Figure 2 shows the postcard that I created from the observational drawing of the sculpture, and Figure 3 shows the written reflection of the postcard. This technique of observational drawing that requires quietly sitting with an artefact is one suggestion of how one can engage with an evocative object found in a museum space. The other technique that could be used in engaging historical visual records is working directly over a copy of an archival item. Figure 4 shows a photograph of the Verwoerd Cabinet painting being taken out of its gold frame in the parliamentary dining room, ready to be rolled up and stored in the basement storage facility. Figure 5 shows the technique of adding to and working over the copy. In this instance I added South Africa’s democratic flag with acrylic paint. Figure 6 is my written reflection of this postcard. (The full catalogue of postcards can be accessed here).
There are constant reminders in the news that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has unfinished business. The desire to hold the perpetrators of Apartheid era atrocities to account and giving victims’ families a sense of justice, reflects South Africa’s inherited historical trauma that many of us are still consciously and unconsciously dealing with decades after the ending of Apartheid. It was a recommendation and suggestion of my research paper, that the developed protocol could be applied in the museum setting. As a first step in this direction, I spoke to Jordan Saltzman, the Collections Manager at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC) in June 2024. Jordan made it very clear that the JHGC was not there to glorify the perpetrators of history. She did, however, recognise the importance of providing a safe space to talk about historical trauma, and this includes the experiences of people who have inherited historical trauma from both victims and perpetrators.
Although the JHGC’s focus is on 20th century genocides, Jordan noted that there is some mention of Apartheid in the display. She explained that the common thread between the Holocaust, the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Apartheid and more recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa, was hate language and stereotyping – a tendency to dehumanize and other certain groups of people leading to unspeakable acts of violence. I explained my research to Jordan and asked her if she could imagine an art therapy group that catered for those of us experiencing inherited perpetrator trauma and toxic shame. She conceded that this was an intriguing idea.
Response art in the museum space has been shown to be an effective art therapy process (Linesch, 2004). Witnessing and considering the art in a psychodynamic way and verbally reflecting on it also has therapeutic benefits (Walters, 2020). The museum as a space that considers the complexity of objects and their meanings in psychoanalytic terms has been considered (Froggett & Trustram, 2015), and it is Christopher Bollas’ (2009) notion of an “evocative object” that is pertinent here in relation to artefacts that hold visceral cultural and symbolic meaning.
The idea of the postcard format suggests the therapeutic value of sharing one’s experience of historical trauma with an ‘other’ and resolving the toxic shame that can be a result of keeping secret traumatic histories to oneself. A postcard needs a stamp of approval. It is sent with a blind faith and a hope that it reaches the end destination. It takes time to arrive. These are all familiar elements of a therapeutic alliance that speaks of unconditional positive self-regard, commitment to therapy and allowing processes to unfold in their own time.
I asked Jordan what she thought of the art therapy technique of creating postcards inspired by evocative artefacts or archival material in the museum. Having trained as a Community Art Counsellor at Lefika La Phodiso, she was very excited by this idea. Lefika La Phodiso, founded by Hayley Berman in 1994, is Africa’s first psychoanalytically informed Community Art Counselling Training centre. She explained that she was passionate about interactive museum experiences. Most importantly, Jordan noted that the museum space offers a reflective space to speak about traumatic histories without judgement. This is where art therapy and the museum space are congruent. She constantly came back to the complexity of history and how one should not think in black and white terms. She explained that everyone who came to the museum brought their own histories and complexities with them.
Jordan spoke of one’s receptiveness to hearing new ideas and being open to the unexpected and unknown. Jordan pointed towards a typewriter on display and explained that it had belonged to Adolf Hitler. It had somehow found its way into South Africa and the museum. Apparently the JHGC had received hate mail because of the evocative typewriter. I admit that I too was shocked at the materiality of this object and the thought of Hitler tapping its keys. I had not thought that an evocative object would itself receive a postal response. The typewriter brings a refreshing irony to my research. It would be interesting to facilitate an art therapy group using the postcard method of either working over a printed image of this typewriter or allowing people to sketch it. There would be an opportunity to create written reflections and share within the group.
Contemplating my two postcards presented here, I note the complexity of the Benin Queen Mother’s head as an artefact in my research. It represents the debate around restitution of colonial artefacts: it was one of the artworks that inspired me to study African art history as a teenager, and is strangely situated in my step-grandfather’s studio where the Verwoerd Cabinet painting was created. In constructing this article, Jordan also came across the exact plaster cast of this Benin head that I had not managed to find a couple of years ago. Jordan thought that the technique of creating over a copy of a historical document could give a sense of agency in interacting with history. One could add to the history or block out portions of it: recreate history to one’s liking.
We ended our conversation on a positive note and agreed that we would meet again and perhaps try out the art therapy postcard techniques on the museum staff. Who knows what we would uncover?
ALISA RAY
Alisa currently offers online art therapy sessions for adults (18+). She has many years of experience working in a rehabilitation centre that treats addictions and offers art therapy support for 12-Step Programmes. Alisa has many years’ experience working in a psychiatric step-down facility and offers support for Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.
Alisa is well suited to offer support to family members coping with a loved one who has an addiction, psychiatric illness or dementia. Alisa offers art therapy for personal growth or building self-confidence, navigating the difficulties of life and its changes, loss and grief (including complicated and disenfranchised grief). Alisa has a special interest in helping with toxic shame that stems from inherited perpetrator trauma.
REFERENCES
Abrams, A. R. 2021, December 17. A Send-Off Exhibition of 179 Looted Objects in Hamburg Marks “the Beginning of the Return” of Germany’s Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Artnet News. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hamburg-benin-bronzes-return-2050827.
Bollas, C. 2009. The evocative object world. Routledge
Dolezal, L. & Gibson, M. 2022. Beyond a trauma-informed approach and towards shame-sensitive practice. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 1(10). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01227-z.
Froggett, L. & Trustram, M. 2014. Object relations in the museum: a psychosocial perspective. Museum Management and Curatorship, 29(5): 482-497.
Linesch, D. 2004. Art therapy at the museum of tolerance: responses to the life and work of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 31(2004): 57-66.
Maree, B. 1967. Painter of prime ministers. In South African panorama. 12(11): 28-32.
Ray, A. 2023. Art therapy postcards; How does a personal arts-based process inform the development of an art therapy protocol to address intergenerational perpetrator trauma? https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/sajat/article/view/2494.
Walters, D. 2020. Art as therapy; museums and galleries as places for psychodynamic art therapy. Asia Pacific Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 11(1): 3-22.