Often inspired by her extensive research on historical sites, in the video By and By Some Trace Remains Kitso L. Lelliott engages a disused office buried deep within Constitution Hill, Johannesburg in order to excavate traces of the past within its walls. Accessible via a trapdoor and adjacent to a mortuary and police station, the room’s location invites us to ponder what else might have taken place there. Although today Constitution Hill functions as a heritage and judicial centre, until recently the site was most known for housing political activists and common criminals who had broken colonial rule or apartheid law. Lelliott’s video poetically reappraises this history by portraying symbolic acts of recovery and erasure as a means of voicing narratives that have heretofore remained untold.
