category: autobiography, visual arts, South Africa liberation movement
ISBN: 978-1-990974-68-7
Format: 260 8 x 10 in pages over 100 full colour illustrations
Paperback (Amazon): 2018
(South Africa): April 2021
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Available: in South Africa at this website, and in book shops; and from Amazon (USA and Europe)
Release date: April 2021
Book title: Drawn Lines, an autobiography of Judy Ann Seidman
Author: Judy Ann Seidman
Drawn Lines
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an autobiography by Judy Ann Seidman
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expression as experience / personal is political / art of the liberation struggle
Drawn Lines tells the story of Judy Ann Seidman. Her life wanders from a white, middle class, female childhood on the fringes of 1950’s America, to adolescence in Nkrumah’s Ghana; to Madison Wisonsin chanting ‘stop the war in Vietnam”; to Southern Africa’s liberation struggle; to Johannsburg’s post-apartheid roller coaster. This story is awash with cross-currents of class, race, gender, self and social identity.
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Told through a collage of visual image, artwork, diaries, memory and reflection, Drawn Lines describes a woman’s attempts to find voice for self and collective. It tells of trying to make artwork and political action, and of the places in between.
Drawn Lines looks at --
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Culture as a weapon of struggle: finding creativity, inspiration, belief, love, joy and hope, in the face of repression, silencing, raids and killing
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Africa’s culture of liberation: from pan-Africanist culture in 1960s Ghana to Medu Art Ensemble in Botswana in the ‘80s, to making art of and within the armed struggle, to visions of struggles and futures still to come
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Making art from a woman’s perspective: playing art with the big boys, never considered for a team pick because you do not fit the definition of a serious player, which begins with having balls...
This book is written for all those whose creativity and courage infuse and shape this story; who are not here today to tell what happened to you who come after.
"Seidman’s auto-biographical project is vital to an archived understanding of who we are as South Africans and the rich, bloody texture of protest that defined the anti-apartheid movement."
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- Robyn Sassen, review of retrospective exhibition Drawn Lines, New Frame, 4 Sep 2019
DRAWN LINES was launched in South Africa on Zoom on Wednesday 21 April 2021, hosted by the Wits History Workshop and Love Books, featuring a discussion between writers and cultural activists Mandla Langa and Makhosazana Xaba, and Judy Seidman.
Click here for the panel discussion on the Wits History Workshop youtube site.
About the author: Born in 1951, Judy’moved from the USA to Ghana, studied at the University of Wisconsin (BA sociology, MFA painting 1972); then moved to Zambia, Swaziland, and Botswana. There she made art, got married, had two children, and divorced. Her art increasingly spoke to South Africa’s liberation struggle, above-ground with Medu Art Ensemble and in the underground. She has exhibited in New York, London, Botswana, Zambia, Swaziland, and South Africa; and has written extensively on South Africa’s art of the liberation struggle. Today she lives in Johannesburg, survives HIV, works as a cultural workerand activist; cares for cats, and enjoys being a grandmother.