Exploring 'Ons vir jou': a photographic artwork capturing South Africa's Reconciliation Day at the Voortrekker Monument

A striking new photographic artwork by Lily van Rensburg and Haroon Gunn-Salie brings renewed attention to one of South Africa’s most politically charged commemorations. 

Titled Ons vir jou (2025), the piece documents the annual December 16 gathering at the Voortrekker Monument. 

Gunn-Salie is an artist and activist, and van Rensburg a photographer, academic, and cultural worker. Although they’ve worked together in various ways over the years, Ons vir jou is their first officially co-published artwork.

While reframed as Reconciliation Day during South Africa’s dawn of democracy, the duo explain that December 16, was previously celebrated as the Day of the Covenant to mark the anniversary of the 1838 Battle of Blood River. The artwork portrays the crowd gathered in 2024 to witness the moment at which, at noon, a beam of sunlight penetrates the oculus in the Monument’s domed roof to illuminate a marble cenotaph 40 meters below. 

“With the inscription ‘Ons vir jou, Suid Afrika’ etched into its surface, the cenotaph is today symbolic of a grave in which Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid have been laid to rest.” 

Van Rensburg and Gunn-Salie explained: “The photograph is taken from the whispering gallery in the Monument’s domed roof. We composed the image at an angle so that the light entering through the Monument’s front door forms a diagonal across the frame, drawing focus to the awe-inspired crowd gathered to witness the phenomenon.”

The artists were drawn to document the December 16 event at the Voortrekker Monument due to their shared interest in “the structures and practices that comprise or influence history, memory, and identity”.

According to the pair, these interests led them to attend and document the cultural phenomenon of the December 16 at the Voortrekker Monument as it occurs today.

The inscription “Ons vir jou, Suid Afrika” may be loaded with history, however, van Rensburg and Gunn-Salie said their intention in omitting “Suid Afrika” from the artwork’s title is to “repurpose the phrase, devoid of its historic contexts of nationalism and apartheid”.

“We hope to highlight the socio-cultural phenomenon that, over 30 years after South Africa’s dawn of democracy, still draws thousands of people from the surrounding provinces to celebrate and lament the past in equal parts.” 

Ons vir jou forms part of a group exhibition, 'A Beast with Two Backs', curated by Keely Shinners and Grace Matetoa, on show at the Association for Visual Arts on Church Street, Cape Town until July 31.

Cape Times