I visited the Museum of Sydney in December 2009. It is a relatively new museum (1995) in downtown Sydney on the site of the first Government House. It is architecturally inserted into the base of a large office tower building. I was curious to see how the story of the City of Sydney is portrayed, particularly given the historical similarities between Sydney and my own city, Cape Town.

Entrance to the Museum of Sydney

Edge of the Trees installation

The first installation one is confronted with is at the entrance to the museum – the iconic Edge of the Trees, by Fiona Foley and Janet Laurence. The name of the sculpture comes from an essay by Australian archaeologist Rhys Jones: “…the ‘discoverers’ struggling through the surf were met on the beaches by other people looking at them from the edge of the trees. Thus the same landscape perceived by the newcomers as alien, hostile, or having no coherent form, was to the indigenous people their home, a familiar place, the inspiration of dreams.”

As the plaque outside says: “Edge of the Trees is about contact. It acknowledges the indigenous place and people of Sydney, home of the Eora, and the many layers of occupation since 1788… A place to enter, explore, contest anew; perhaps reconciliation?”

Throughout the museum, there are genuine attempts to come to terms with the impact of ‘first encounters’ – contacts between first Australians, with their 40 000 years of history in the Sydney region, and British colonisers, most of them convicts. For example, in Invasion 1 – an Aboriginal perspective by Gordon Syron, the perspective of Aboriginal Australians towards the newcomers is clearly portrayed.

Gordon Syron, Invasion 1 - an Aboriginal perspective, 1999

Elsewhere in the museum, there was an exhibition of the work of Sydney artist, cartoonist and song-writer Martin Sharp. Sharp, a well-known 1960s counter-culture artist who designed the cover of the Cream albums Disraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire in 1968, also shows his concerns about Aboriginal justice through his painting Australia, which is a reinterpretation of the cartoon A Curiosity in her own Country by Phil May that appeared in 1888, itself an ironic comment on the Centenary celebrations of the time.

Martin Sharp, Australia, 2003-09

Phil May, A Curiosity in her Own Country, 1888

All this brings me to the point of this particular post – where is our own Museum of Cape Town?

To find the story (or stories) of our city, you have to try and piece it together through visits to a range of different museums: Iziko Slave Lodge (slavery), Rust en Vreugd (visual images of life in early Cape Town), Koopmans de Wet (household life), Bertram House (the British period), Groot Constantia (Cape Dutch life), Bo Kaap Museum (Islamic, slave and apartheid history), Castle of Good Hope (artefacts, military history), South African Museum (archaeology, social history), District Six Museum (apartheid forced removals), SA Sendingstigting Museum (missions and slavery), Heart of the City at Groote Schuur Hospital (first heart transplant), Lwandle Museum (migrant labour), SA Maritime Museum (history of Table Bay Harbour), SA Jewish Museum (social history), Robben Island Museum (colonialism and apartheid) and so on.

I’m sure I’ve left some places out, and this is not a comment on the good work done by the museums in our city, but the point I am trying to make is this – our city story is fragmented and largely untold. There is no single place which brings together the histories and memories of our city in a coherent way. This is why for example I believe our own ‘first encounters’ continues to be uncritically and stereotypically depicted on many contemporary Cape Town websites largely through the painting of Charles Bell: Jan van Riebeeck arrives in Table Bay in April 1652.

Charles Bell, 1813-1882, Jan van Riebeeck arrives in Table Bay in April 1652. Charles Bell was the Surveyor General at the Cape. He was also an artist and a stamp designer (he designed the famous Cape of Good Hope triangular stamp). The suburb of Bellville is named after him.

In essence, the history of Cape Town, known as the ‘Mother City’ for good reason, is the history of our nation. It is the original place of our own first encounters – the first dispossessions around water and land, the first conquests and subjugations, the first struggles for freedom and justice.

So, do we need a Cape Town Museum? I believe we do, but then where should it be located? What form should it take? Who is going to get the ball rolling?