The Keiskamma Altarpiece

In 2006 and again in 2008, St. James Cathedral was host to the Keiskamma Altarpiece from Hamburg, South Africa, a monumental work of art created by 130 people, mostly women, from this Eastern Cape Province as a hopeful response to the AIDS epidemic in their community. Chicago was the first stop - and will be the last stop - on a United States tour to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C.

In September 2008, the Keiskamma Altarpiece will travel to London.

Keiskamma Altarpiece YouTube VIDEOS

2008 Keiskamma Exhibit Brochure

Keiskamma Altarpiece 2006 Brochure

Keiskamma Altarpiece photos St. James

Keiskamma Friends Link

The Keiskamma Altarpiece
The Keiskamma Art Project Artists
Keiskamma, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Embroidery, beadwork, wirework,
photographs, wood frame 13' x 22'
Collection of the Keiskamma Trust

Background
Created in 2005 by the women of the coastal town of Hamburg, in South Africa’s largely rural, poverty-stricken Eastern Cape Province, the Keiskamma Altarpiece is a message of hope for people who are contending with the devastation that AIDS has wrought in their lives in the midst of poverty and other hardships.

The Keiskamma Altarpiece is the second monumental artwork made by the women of the coastal town of Hamburg, located in South Africa’s largely rural Eastern Cape Province. The first such piece, the 43 meter (138 ft) “Democracy Tapestry”, inspired by the famed Bayeux Tapestry, presents the history of South Africa’s first ten years of democracy.

The Keiskamma Altarpiece was made using embroidery, beadwork, wire sculpture, and photographs. Its shape and dimensions (6.5 meters wide when fully open and 4.2 meters high) exactly replicates those the multi-panel format of the famed Isenheim Altarpiece, now in Colmar, France. Moreover, the synchronicity between the two is not limited to size and shape. The Keiskamma Altarpiece reflects a kindred spirit the Isenheim, both of them created in the face of a devastating plague wreaking havoc on their communities.

Created by Matthias Grünewald in the 15^th century, the Isenheim Altarpiece was painted for a hospice where the patients were dying of ergot poisoning, caused by a simple grain fungus. At the time, no one had been able to diagnose this misunderstood affliction, then known as St. Anthony’s Fire, which had arisen from what were then unknown causes. The panic, fear and devastation it caused resulted in suffering and death throughout Europe, just as AIDS is continuing to do, particularly in southern Africa, as well as around the world.

The Artwork
Just as the Democracy Tapestry presented a message of celebration and of hope for the newly democratic South Africa, the Keiskamma Altarpiece offers solace, strength, and inspiration. The Keiskamma Altarpiece depicts the annunciation, crucifixion, resurrection, and other events from the New Testament from the point-of-view of the people of the Keiskamma region. It is constructed as a series of hinged panels that open to reveal three “layers".

	The closed altar depicts the crucifixion using local Xhosa imagery. The biblical figures are replaced with women and men from Hamburg and the surrounding areas. In the position of the crucified Christ is a widow in Xhosa traditional mourning with an old lady and children beside her. On either side are two elderly women who have been stalwarts of the community and who have borne much grief.
	When the first panels are opened, the altar presents a vision of hope, redemption, and restoration. The vibrantly colored images depict trees, birds, fish, cattle, spiritual worship, and traditional village life. This idealized picture of Hamburg and environs includes the large figure of a local prophet, a man wearing a red dress who runs in the sand to make decorative prayer patterns with his feet.
	The innermost panels depict the resurrection using life-size photographs by Tanya Jordaan of three grandmothers and their grandchildren framed in ornate beadwork. This section of the altar represents the wisdom of the old and the hope for the new generation. This beadwork was planned and made by Ardwork Jange from the Cape Town organization known as Streetwise, along with local Ntilini women. Each layer of the altar is dense with embroidery, appliqué, and beadwork, with the last layer a combination of sculptural wire beadwork and photographs. To make the altar, the women learned new embroidery techniques, particularly stump-work.

History & Inspiration
Altogether there were over 120 women and some men working on this masterpiece. In making this work the community artists hoped to draw a parallel between AIDS and other diseases that seemed hopeless and now no longer exist, thereby offering hope to people living with HIV and AIDS, and indeed to all of us. The artists also wanted to show that, although they feel cut off and alone in their suffering, they are part of the whole of humanity, past and present, who have had to deal with terrible afflictions.

Dr. Carol Hofmeyr, the director of the Keiskamma Trust, is responsible for bringing the idea of recreating and reanimating the Isenheim Altar to the people of Keiskamma. Dr. Hofmeyr’s interest in art served as catalyst for linking the strong indigenous art-making tradition among members of the community in which she works with issues and challenges facing them. This synergy has resulted to date in two ambitious art projects based on masterpieces from the Western art canon: the first, an embroidered history of the Xhosa peoples of the Transkei region inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, and the second the multi-media Keiskamma Altarpiece modeled on Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece.

While both pieces reference European works that are many centuries old, they engage directly with complex contemporary issues in South Africa. The tapestry piece was developed as a celebration of South Africa's shift from the apartheid to the post-apartheid era. By narrating the history of the Xhosa peoples from pre-colonial to modern times, the piece clearly establishes the artists' sense of their newly acquired powers as citizens of a democratic South Africa and envisions their optimistic expectations for what this liberation will mean for them in their daily lives. The Keiskamma Altarpiece acknowledges the profoundly painful impact of the AIDS epidemic on the community while celebrating the response of community members, especially the women in the community, in caring for those in need. 

The process Dr. Hofmeyr and the artists in the community go through in creating these works evidences the many benefits that have been realized. Dr. Hofmeyr brings ideas and images to the group and they discuss how the work relates to their issues and interests. This interpretative process continues throughout the construction of the work. In the case of the altar, for example, the translation occurred at many levels, among the most significant being who in the community most closely represented the symbolic positions of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the apostles in Grünewald's model. Through a long process of discussion and the development of collages of images of places, events, and people from Keiskamma, the group developed its version or translation of the altarpiece and then realized that in the form of embroidery, beadwork, wire sculpture, and photography.

Our Guests from South Africa

Dr. Carol Hofmeyr is director of the Keiskamma Trust. She will be in Chicago May 9-12, 2008 at the end of the Keiskamma Exhibit at St. James Cathedral. 

A native of South Africa, she is the only physician providing HIV/AIDS care in the predominantly Xhosa region of rural Eastern Cape Province. This province is one of the poorest areas in South Africa with some communities reporting extremely high HIV infection rates (well over 50% in some places). Unlike the much-more developed Western Cape Province, where the city of Cape Town is located, the districts in which Dr. Hofmeyr works have very poor infrastructure for health care and other public services, coupled with high unemployment and limited economic activity.

As director of the Keiskamma Trust, Dr. Hofmeyr is responsible for bringing the idea of recreating and reanimating the Issenheim Altar to the people of Keiskamma. She is a medical doctor who also earned a master’s degree in fine art. Born in 1950, she grew up in Johannesburg and studied medicine at the WITS medical school where she met her husband, Justus Hofmeyr. She stopped practicing early in her medical career to raise her family and follow her passion in art. In Johannesburg she was involved in a community embroidery initiative called the Paper Prayers Project. In 1999, Dr. Hofmeyr and her husband moved from the busy city of Johannesburg to the poverty stricken Eastern Cape and settled in the village of Hamburg. Over the next year Dr. Hofmeyr grew to know the community and started to become aware of its problems. She began teaching art to those who were interested.

The Keiskamma Art Project grew in response to the overwhelming needs of the community. In addition to managing the poverty alleviation project, Dr. Hofmeyr began to work part time in the primary care clinics in the Peddie South region in 2002 as there were no doctors in these clinics. The mission and objectives of the Keiskamma Trust were thus expanded to include health and accessibility of health services for local communities.