Marking 100 years since the iconic leader’s birth, the Nelson Mandela Centenary Exhibition joins a programme of Black History Month events celebrating Black history, arts and culture
The Nelson Mandela Centenary Exhibition opens at Wales Millennium Centre on 5 October during Black History Month, the nationwide celebration of Black history, arts and culture.
The major free exhibition explores six themes of the iconic leader’s life – Character, Comrade, Leader, Prisoner, Negotiator and Statesman – tracing his Long Walk to Freedom through a series of dramatic visual panels, films, artefacts and a Children’s Trail. It is jointly presented by the Apartheid Museum in South Africa, Anti-Apartheid Movement Archives and Southbank Centre, marking the centenary of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s birth (1918 – 2013).
The Nelson Mandela Centenary Exhibition opened at London’s Southbank Centre in July, attended by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, after various successful iterations of the exhibition around the world. The exhibition comes to Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff for its second-ever UK outing from 5 October until 18 November.
Items in the exhibition include one of the pick axes which Mandela and his colleagues used in the lime quarry on Robben Island, and a letter of thanks from Mandela to the British public, written on the 16 April 1990, the day he attended the Nelson Mandela: An International Tribute for a Free South Africa concert at Wembley Stadium.
Former Secretary of State for Wales and anti-apartheid leader, Lord Peter Hain, who is author of Mandela: His Essential Life and Chair of the London Mandela Centenary Committee said:
“I’m delighted that the magnificent Mandela Centenary Exhibition is coming to Wales’ national arts centre – Wales Millennium Centre – this autumn. It has drawn huge crowds at the Southbank Centre in London – from all walks of life and of all ages. It is a ‘must-see’ which depicts the anti-apartheid struggle and Mandela’s vision of non-racial rainbow democracy based upon justice, equality and human rights. I hope that many people from across Wales get the opportunity to see this important free exhibition while it is in Cardiff”.