How one artist reclaimed his identity after seven years of imprisonment on Robben Island

History · Published 30 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Lionel Davis spent seven years as a political prisoner on Robben Island, a site once synonymous with apartheid-era banishment. Today, his self-portrait, Reclamation, transforms that history. By layering maps and poetry, Davis explores the profound, collective necessity of reclaiming the self and the physical spaces stolen by systemic oppression.

Lionel Davis, born in 1936, offers a unique perspective on Robben Island, having experienced it both as a place of incarceration and as a site of education. Following his release, he returned to the island to work at the museum, shifting his personal association from a location of banishment to a space for bringing people together. His artwork, Reclamation, serves as a visual manifestation of this transition, integrating cartographic elements of District Six and Robben Island to bridge the gap between his personal history and the broader South African struggle.

The island itself possesses a complex, multi-layered history. Located in Table Bay, it served as a Dutch and British penal colony long before it became a maximum-security prison for political offenders from the mid-1960s until 1991. Beyond its role in political imprisonment, the island functioned as a leper colony between 1846 and 1931 and housed those deemed insane. This history of exclusion and confinement defines the landscape that Davis seeks to reclaim through his creative practice.

The transformation of Robben Island from a site of state-sanctioned trauma to a place of cultural memory is marked by significant milestones. After the final political prisoners were released in 1991, the island continued to house criminal offenders until 1996. By 1997, it was established as a museum and national monument, eventually receiving World Heritage status in 1999. Davis’s work reflects this evolution, emphasizing that the act of reclamation is not merely about physical territory, but about the reclamation of the human spirit from the legacy of apartheid.

Davis’s self-portrait was featured in the exhibition South Africa: the art of a nation, held at the British Museum between 27 October 2016 and 27 February 2017. Through his art, he highlights the collective need to recover what was stolen, using the medium of self-portraiture to assert agency over a narrative that once sought to erase his identity.

General information, not professional advice. Spotted an error? Flag the card or see corrections and complaints.

Intellect Plus is a visual educational discovery platform for exploring fascinating facts and ideas. Brain Food, Not Brain Rot. What is Intellect Plus?

Related

• A tiny island off Cape Town has served as a prison for centuries
• How Mongane Wally Serote transformed the trauma of apartheid into a national literary voice.
• Breyten Breytenbach: The dissident poet who challenged the soul of apartheid South Africa
• How a reformatory principal became the voice of South Africa's conscience against apartheid
• Can photography be both a political weapon and a poetic record of daily life?
• The struggle for survival during the early Roman Republic
• The 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis: A Cold War Flashpoint Over Kinmen and Matsu
• How did Serbia's turbulent pre-war history set the stage for the Great War?
• Why a nuclear missile silo is the worst possible place for a fire
• Meet Milunka Savic, the most decorated female soldier in all of military history.
• The afternoon fifty-two German warships vanished beneath the waves
• Equipping the Serbian Army was a massive logistical challenge from the very start

More in History · Latest · A–Z · All topics