Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta VoiceBorn in Johannesburg, South Africa, Ralph Ziman, the South African artist behind The Casspir Project, uses his work to reflect on a lifetime shaped by the struggles of apartheid, militarization, and global cycles of violence. Unveiled at Atlanta Contemporary in a precursor to the Atlanta Art Week, the Casspir military tank, a 22-foot-long, 9-foot-tall installation that is a symbol for both oppression and transformation during apartheid, according to Ziman.For the installation, Ziman transformed the tank with approximately 70 million hand-strung glass beads. Taking three years to complete with the help of nearly 100 artisans.Floyd Hall, the Executive Director of Atlanta Contemporary, shared insights on bringing Ziman’s Caspir project to the gallery during Atlanta Art Week. Hall explained that Atlanta Art Week has grown significantly and attracted attention from artists beyond the city. He discussed the opportunity to feature Ziman’s large-scale vehicle installation, which was first showcased at the Seattle Art Fair. Once the team realized they had the space to accommodate the exhibit in the outdoor plaza, Hall saw it as a “no-brainer” to host it.“Our core mission is to provide free admission to world-class art, allowing a broad audience to engage with significant works like Ralph’s,” Hall said.Ziman grew up during the darkest years of apartheid. He recalls a South Africa where Black people were systematically oppressed—denied basic rights such as owning land, using public transportation, and even attending cinemas. Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta Voice“From an early age, I saw the people around me— treated as second-class citizens,” Ziman explained. Despite being born into privilege as a white South African, he felt an innate sense of empathy and fairness. “You either have empathy or you don’t,” Ziman said. “It always amazes me that some people can’t see things from other people’s point of view.”By the time Ziman reached adolescence, South Africa was facing increasing unrest. He vividly remembers the 1976 Soweto Uprising, a pivotal moment in the anti-apartheid movement. “Our lives were so different. We went to school, while just miles away, kids were being killed for protesting,” he recounted. During the uprising, Ziman’s school bus was escorted by police, while parents patrolled the school grounds with shotguns. From a hilltop at his school, Red Hill Elementary, Ziman could see the smoke rising from Alexandra Township as protests turned deadly. “Kids were throwing stones, and the police fired back with live rounds.”After finishing school, Ziman worked as a cameraman for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), where he often found himself covering the violent uprisings and unrest. “I saw a lot of that firsthand,” he said. However, the most significant turning point in his life came when he was conscripted into the South African military. Faced with the prospect of donning the uniform of an oppressive regime, Ziman felt he couldn’t reconcile it with his values. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t put on that uniform. I kept thinking, what would I tell my children? I didn’t believe in the system, and I couldn’t be part of it.”Ziman felt a stark line had been crossed when soldiers were tasked with controlling Black South Africans in the townships. He had signed all the necessary conscription papers and was on the verge of being called up when, days before his deployment, he made the life-altering decision to flee. He boarded a plane and left South Africa, knowing he would be branded a deserter. The military police came to his home looking for him, but by then, he was in another country. For years, he couldn’t return home, as he risked imprisonment or forced conscription.In exile, Ziman lived in London, though his situation there was far from easy. He was undocumented and, though he worked secretly directing music videos, he was constantly under threat of deportation. He eventually married, which allowed him to stay in the UK, but it took three years of bureaucratic wrangling to obtain any kind of formal residency.His creative life in exile was influenced heavily by his formative years in South Africa, and by his deep appreciation for African art, music, and culture. Ziman cited his personal narrative, like those of many white South Africans who grew up under apartheid, as complex. He saw himself not as a European living in Africa but as someone deeply connected to the continent’s African identity. Yet, the contradictions of being white in Africa—questions of belonging, identity, and complicity—never entirely went away.Eventually, as apartheid began to crumble in the late 1980s, Ziman was able to return to South Africa.The influence of apartheid, and its complex aftermath, never left Ziman. Even as the apartheid regime ended, the weapons it had produced, like the iconic Casspir armored vehicle, found new markets in other oppressive regimes around the world. Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta VoiceThe Casspir Project is not only a commentary on the militarization of apartheid South Africa but also on the global spread of militarized policing. The Casspir, initially designed to suppress Black South Africans, found new life in the second Gulf War. The U.S. military purchased and rebranded the vehicle as the MRAP (Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected) to combat roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. “America liked them so much, they bought the patents and started making their own,” Ziman explained.With The Casspir Project, Ziman sought to subvert the vehicle’s oppressive legacy. “The idea was to mess with it, to Africanize it, to upscale it,” he said. The intricate beadwork covering the Casspir, created by artisans from multiple South African tribes in unity, serves as a stark contrast to the vehicle’s violent origins. Ziman’s goal was to create something modern and African, without referencing any specific tribe, as a celebration of the continent’s resilience and artistry.The repurposing of military vehicles like the Casspir in American cities, including those in Georgia, during protests such as the George Floyd protests, highlights a stark reality: the methods of control and violence once used in apartheid-era South Africa are now being applied globally, often in the name of law and order.The connection between militarization and civil rights struggles is particularly poignant in Georgia, a state with a deep history of racial injustice and resistance. From the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to the Black Lives Matter protests that swept through Atlanta in recent years, Georgia has long been a battleground for the fight against systemic racism. For Ziman, transforming the Casspir with vibrant, intricate beadwork represents an act of reclamation. “It’s about taking something brutal and oppressive and turning it into something beautiful, something that speaks to our shared humanity,” he explained. Bringing this vehicle to Georgia, a state with its own fraught history of racial violence, adds another layer to this reclamation.As Ziman’s work travels through different cities, he hopes it sparks conversations about the broader implications of militarization and the need for systemic change. Georgia, a state that played a critical role in the 2020 presidential election which saw Georgia transform into a key battleground state and Atlanta’s diverse communities leading the charge for change. Ziman’s installation is timed serendipitously with this upcoming political election.“It’s important to remember that while we’ve made progress, the fight for justice and equality isn’t over,” Ziman said. “The past is never really behind us, and the systems that allowed apartheid to flourish still exist in different forms today.” At its core, The Casspir Project is a call to action—a plea for vigilance and a reminder that the struggles for human rights and dignity are far from over, cited Ziman. “They say history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. And right now it’s rhyming like crazy”. The post History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes: Ralph Ziman brings South African art & history to Atlanta  appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.