Sue Williamson
There's something
I must tell you
Cape Town, South Africa
22 February - 12 October 2025
For over five decades, Sue Williamson’s art practice has engaged with South Africa’s shifting social and political landscape—from the colonial era to apartheid and into the democratic present. Working across printmaking, photography, video, drawing, and installation, Williamson attends to the gaps and silences within official histories, bringing overlooked voices into view.
There’s something I must tell you invites us to consider the relationship between memory and forgetting, between what is documented and what is erased—not in grand proclamations, but in fragments, gestures, and testimonies—each revealing a different layer in the ever evolving dynamics of memory and social change.
While Williamson’s early works responded to the lived experience of apartheid, her later practice extends these concerns outward—drawing parallels between South Africa’s history and global struggles for justice and recognition. From her earliest interventions to her more recent global reflections, her practice continues to highlight the interconnectedness of local and global struggles, urging us to listen, and to engage with history as an unfinished and ongoing process.
Sue Williamson:
There's Something I Must Tell You
We begin with A Few South Africans (1983–1987), the iconic photo-etched and silk-screened portraits of women who fought for liberation from apartheid.From there, the reader moves through The Apartheid Years, Africa and her Colonisers, The Voices on the Street, No More Fairy Tales, Messages from the Moat, and The Story of District Six.
Each room highlights a distinct theme.New York Times art critic Holland Cotter has called Williamson “a dynamic amazement.” Her work flows fluidly across a wide range of media, including drawing, printmaking, photography, video, and sculptural installation.
Critical texts by award-winning writers Zoé Whitley and Sean O’Toole offer further insights into her practice.The final room In the Studio is wallpapered with a facsimile of the artist’s studio, featuring a timeline and vitrines containing press clippings, posters, photographs, tools, and objects from Williamson’s working life, and Sihle Sogaula’s text reflects on this archive.