Wolfson GBF and alumnus team up on inscription project for Rhodes House

During the design work for the redevelopment of Rhodes House in 2021-23, an opportunity was identified to create a stone parapet on the south facade which could accept a text inscription. Wolfson GBF and Rhodes Scholar Professor Elleke Boehmer and Wolfson alum Luan Staphorst (GS 2021-22) were tasked with finding a way to translate the inscription into ǀxam, the southern African language which is now a ‘sleeping language’, meaning that it is no longer used by any group as a mother tongue.

Together Professor Boehmer and Staphorst visited the Kalahari to consult with community leaders who are speakers of the related language N|uu to seek blessing for the use of |xam in this context. Their translation of the statement “remembering and honouring the labour and suffering of those who worked to create this wealth” into ǀxam, is now carved into the stone parapet of a new convention centre on the site. The carving was carried out in January of this year by Oxfordshire stonemason Fergus Wessel, sitting at eye level to those walking in the gardens of Rhodes House. The inscription’s handcrafted aspect responds to the saying’s reference to the difficult labour of southern African peoples that produced the Rhodes wealth.

Elleke and Luan’s reflections on this trip and the process of agreeing and enacting the carving have been published in an article in The Conversation.