Carin Bester Brings Back "She Had A Name" Performance Piece

In 2020, when asked “how are we holding up okes”, I commented, “we are living in perpetual grief....”

This came after living in lockdown for over 6 months, watching the world around me change and come undone. However, unfortunately, what remained true and steady was the lack of regard for the lives of women; the callous attitudes towards GBV. You would think that spending time indoors and away from the “danger” would have limited the impact of gender-based violence; at least, that is what’s reinforced by comments like “where were you” when people engage a sexual assault. 

Nevertheless, true to its pervasive nature, gender-based violence continued to ravage the lives of women across south africa and the world at large. In response, Carin Bester, artist and activist, has relaunched her She Had A Name performance art series for 2021. 

This performance art series began on midnight of 1 April 2021 and is to run for a year. Every 190 minutes, a new video will be released to total 2,763 performance videos. According to Carin, before a victim of gender-based violence resulting in murder becomes a hashtag or trend, they quite simply had a name. That is the importance of never necessarily listing a victim’s name, however, to highlight that before they were ever a victim of violence, they were a person with a name, hopes, and dreams. Intentions.

Regardless of time or location, Carin Bester’s videos across social media serve to remind timelines of the 2,763 women we know of whose lives were taken from them for the fact that they happened to be women.