About us

Many people have assisted in the project to research, scan, contextualise, edit and publish the Bleek and Lloyd archive, since the initiative to digitise was first negotiated in 2003. The initial team comprised: Professor Pippa Skotnes (Project Director and General Editor), Dr Eustacia Riley, (Associate Editor), Professor Hussein Suleman (developer of the Simple Library software for the Digital Bleek and Lloyd website and CD), Fazlin van der Schyff (scanning and retouching, first part of the ScanShop team and later a member of staff at the Centre for Curating the Archive), Thomas Cartwright (proof reading and assisting with project management), Cara van der Westhuizen (assisting with conservation and project management) and Johann Maree, (conservation at both the University of Cape Town and the National Library of South Africa). This initial phase of the project culminated in a trial site launched in 2006, and then in 2008 the book publication Claim to the Country: the archive of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek and the new Digital Bleek and Lloyd, launched as both a CD (included in the book) and an online site using Hussein Suleman’s Simple Digital Library System. For this, special tools were built to pre-process the metadata and images to create a portable digital library system that would work for locally-hosted collections as well as collections distributed over the Internet or on CD-ROM.

This, the much-expanded third iteration of the digital website, ǃkhwe ta ǀxōë: Digital Bleek and Lloyd, includes new material: manuscript dictionaries, correspondence, photographs, drafts of publications, various research materials and other documents related to the Bleek and Lloyd families. A related site, Selections from ǃkhwe ta ǀxōë: Digital Bleek and Lloyd, introduces visitors to content on the main site and offers multiple points of access to its over 100,000 scans. The team who have been working on the new site includes:

Professor Pippa Skotnes (General Editor and Project Director)

Pippa Skotnes has an MFA and DLit from the University of Cape Town. She was the founding director of the Centre for Curating the Archive. She began working with the Bleek and Lloyd in 1988 and has published several related books. These include: Sound From the Thinking Strings (1991), Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen (1996), Heaven’s Things (1999), Claim to the Country: the Archive of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek (2007), Unconquerable Spirit: the History Paintings of George Stow (2008), Rock Art: Made in Translation (2010), and The Courage of ǁkabbo: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Publication of Specimens of Bushman Folklore (with Janette Deacon) (2014). She has also curated many exhibitions, initiated community projects, undertaken fieldwork and organised events to help extend the reach of the archive.

Dr Eustacia Riley (Associate Editor)

Eustacia Riley graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town in 2002 with an MFA degree and completed a PhD in Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town in 2014. She has worked on many aspects of the archive since its initiation, with a focus on the notebooks, newspaper articles and correspondence.

Professor Hussein Suleman (Digital Library software development)

Hussein Suleman is a computer scientist and Dean of Science at the University of Cape Town. He developed the initial software for the Bleek and Lloyd website and has updated this for this iteration. His main research interests are in digital libraries, ICT4D, African language information retrieval, cultural heritage preservation, Internet technology and educational technology.

Dr Nina Liebenberg (Project Management and Curation)

Nina Liebenberg graduated with an MFA and a PhD from the University of Cape Town, where she taught curatorship and contributed to many curatorial projects. She assisted in the project management of the Digital Bleek and Lloyd and convened curations on related exhibition histories and on the ǀxam dictionary. She is currently (2025) a post-doctoral fellow at the University of the Arts in Helsinki.

Dr Siyakha Mguni

Siyakha Mguni joined the project in 2023 and, apart from contributing curations, he is the Editor of the ǃkhwe ta ǀxōë: Digital Bleek and Lloyd online journal, the Sitting Mist. He is an archaeologist with an MA (Wits) PhD (UCT) in rock art studies and has authored two books, Termites of the Gods: San Cosmology in Southern African Rock Art, (2015) and Archival Theory: Chronology and Interpretation of rock art in the Western Cape, South Africa (2016). He has published many articles and curated two solo exhibitions and three joint exhibitions in southern Africa.

Roxy Jones

Roxy Jones has an Honours Degree in Curatorship from the University of Cape Town, where she is completing her master’s degree in digital Curation. She has been working on the Digital Bleek and Lloyd since 2022, digitising the lexicons and annotating the archive’s fonds.

Hannah Fleishman

Hannah Fleishman has a fine art degree from the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town and is currently studying for her Master’s degree in Amsterdam. She worked on the Digital Bleek and Lloyd in 2023, digitising the lexicons.

Sophie Cope

Sophie Cope has a fine art degree from the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town, where she is currently (2025) working on her master’s degree in clinical psychology. She worked on the Digital Bleek and Lloyd in 2022 and 2023, digitising the lexicons.

Nyasha Njovana

Nyasha Njovana has an Honours Degree in Curatorship from the University of Cape Town, where she is completing her master’s degree in digital Curation. She has been working on the Digital Bleek and Lloyd archive, digitising the lexicons since 2023.

Joshua Pearse

Joshua Pearse joined the project in 2023. Joshua did his fine art degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art and MFA at the China Academy of Art. Joshua works on web development and design, and as a researcher focused on sound in the archive.

Sandra Prosalendis

Sandra Prosalendis has an Honours degree in Drama from the University of the Witwatersrand. She joined the project in 2023 to work on the Janette Deacon Archive. Her background is in education and museum management, and she was the inaugural director of the District Six Museum.

Caitlin MacDonald

Caitlin MacDonald joined the project in 2023 to work on the photographic collections in the archive. She has an Honours degree from the University of Cape Town and is currently (2025) doing an MA in the Environmental Humanities.

Matthew Wannenburgh

Matthew is completing a Master’s (MA) by research in Political Science at Stellenbosch University, specialising in Data Politics (Data Colonialism). He has worked on various aspects of the Bleek and Lloyd archive since February 2024, including Wilhelm Bleek’s opinion pieces on colonial politics, law, and society published in Het Volksblad.

Institutional Support

We are grateful for the support of the University librarians past and present, in particular Lesley Hart and Clive Kirkwood; this project owes much to their commitment to the archive and help in accessing it through some difficult times. This project was also assisted by Melanie Geurstyn of the National Library of South Africa, and Patricia Davison and Lindsay Hooper of Iziko South African Museum. To them and to Sanjin Muftić, Michal Singer and Ujala Satgoor, our special thanks.

Curations

Many scholars have contributed to this online publication through curations, which can be accessed via the bottom of the home page and through the fragments on the showcase site Selections from ǃkhwe ta ǀxōë: Digital Bleek and Lloyd. We will continue to update and add to Curations and Fragments.

Funders

The project to digitise and publish the Bleek and Lloyd archive was originally funded by the Mellon Foundation and De Beers, grants which enabled us to scan, conserve and create digital links between parts of the collection. A generous donation from Vivien Cohen enabled us to purchase the family collection of letters, photographs, and various other documents and to have them scanned and catalogued. Following the devastating fire of 2021 that destroyed the African Studies Library at UCT, but from which the Bleek and Lloyd archive was miraculously (and almost entirely) saved, donations from members of the public as well as from the Mapula Trust (who have continued to support us when funds have run dry) enabled us to continue our project to research and publish this archive and to find ways make it more accessible to the public. Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation have enabled fieldwork in the places where indigenous languages represented in the archive are still spoken. We are very grateful for all this support.