Abstract:
This article takes its departure point from the fact that the VIADUCT 2015 platform
overlapped chronologically with the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign at the University of Cape
Town (UCT). I ask whether bringing some of the archival theory that was discussed and
applied at the platform to bear on an analysis of the campaign against the statue of Rhodes
at UCT – in conjunction with the existing literature around monuments – is helpful in
deepening understandings of the campaign. After singling out some of the most interesting
literature on monuments and monumental iconoclasm, I explore the ways in which
Derridean and Foucauldian inspired readings of the archive might be applied to the colonial
memorial landscape. I propose that the campaign was sustained both by a substantial
archive of iconoclasm, and that the protesters consciously tried to extend and elaborate on
the archive/counter-archive.
