We remember differently : Race, memory, imagination

Using the short film we remember differently (2005) as a focal point, this collection of essays addresses the conditions of cultural production in post-apartheid South Africa. Art practice in an apartheid context was strongly motivated as `struggle art'; but in an environment more consciously informed - by revisiting history and excavating the past - the imagination must feature strongly to exercise the breath of freedom made possible in a democratic South Africa. This invitation `to imagine' is not free from the context of history and it is the central aspect of rethinking history that informs the making of the film. Each of the creative contributors in the making of the film reflects on the creative process and how history and memory informs their creative choices. The book also steps away from the reflexive process of producing the film as described by the cultural collaborators and shifts the focus to also address issues of reception and interpretation of the film. In offering analysis these commentators describe how the imagination is still at work in hermeneutic processes but always subject to history and memory.