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SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID
DURING THE 2ND YEAR OF MY DEGREE I COMPLETED A TEXTILE PROJECT INSPIRED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID. THE BRIEF WAS TO CHOOSE ONE POLITICAL MOVEMENT FROM THE 1990'S TO INSPIRE A PRINTED DESIGN FOR A CAPE USING A SPECIFIC COLOUR PALETTE. AFTER RESEARCHING MULTIPLE DIFFERENT TOPICS I WAS MOST INTRIGUED BY THE SA APARTHEID AS THERE WAS MANY FIGURES WHOSE BRAVERY AND COURAGE STOOD OUT FOR ME, AND I WAS SHOCKED AT MY OWN IGNORANCE TO THIS SUBJECT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS SO RECENT! TAKING INSPIRATION FROM IMAGES OF THE APARTHEID AND DESIGNERS SUCH AS YAYOI KUSAMA AND JOSE ROMUSSI, I AIMED TO PORTRAY THE WAY THAT BLACK PEOPLE WERE TREATED DURING THIS TIME.
Apartheid brought in 1948 which segregated Blacks from White's because of their race
South Africa got a new flag which symbolises unity
Term 'coloured' was abolished & mixed race could marry
SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID LEGISLATION
Equal rights & opportunities were given to Black people
The whole world got involved & protested for Mandela's freedom & end of apartheid
Mandela released from prison after 27 years (1964-1990)
Mandela got Nobel peace prize in 1993
Mandela becomes president
(countries first black president)
ANC (African National Congress) became first democratically elected government 1994 and have been re-elected every years since!
Often associated with stability, symbolises faith, strongly associated with calmness
Dark purple evokes gloom and sad feelings. Can cause frustration
Emotional correspondance with safety. In heraldry, growth indicates growth and hope. Olive green is traditionally the colour of peace
Associated with joy, represents happiness, success. Symbolic of strength & endurance. Dark orange can mean deceit and distrust
Often associated with calm, safety, new beginnings, protection, possibility
Black voices were constantly silenced and manipulated throughout South Africa and their brutal treatment disguised and hidden from the rest of the world. Inspired by Yayoi Kusama's busy polka dot paintings and installations, I used the connotations from my colour palette to portray the way black people were treated by covering the images in different coloured polka dots and making them difficult to distinguish.
Taking inspiration from one of my favourite designers Jean Michel-Basquiat I tried to re-create an image of some apartheid protesters in Basquait's signature graffiti style. Fists were very symbolic during the apartheid as although at the beginning they were threatening, they became the sign for protest and freedom.
One of the inspirational figures I learned of whilst researching was Steve Biko, an anti-apartheid protestor. Biko was the leading creator of South African Students Organisation (SASO) and campaigned for an end to apartheid. He believed that black people needed to extinguish any sense of racial inferiority by popularizing his famous slogan 'Black is Beautiful'.
Biko was viewed as a riotous threat to the government and was placed under a banning order impeding him from organising or participating in activities. Whilst under ban, Biko received a plethora of threats and was detained by state services on numerous occasions. Following his arrest in 1977 Biko was beaten to death by state officers who masked it as a hunger strike.
Biko remains one of the earliest icons of the movement against apartheid, inspiring the subject of many songs and works of art. He is regarded as a political martyr and the 'Father of Black Consciousness'.
THE BASIC TENET OF BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS IS THAT THE BLACK MAN MUST REJECT ALL VALUE SYSTEMS THAT SEEK TO MAKE HIM A FOREIGNER IN THE COUNTRY OF HIS BIRTH AND REDUCE HIS BASIC HUMAN DIGNITY
- STEVE BIKO
South African anti-apartheid politician Oliver Tambo was exiled from the country but still protested from European and African countries and helped to bring publicity to the ANC's (African National Congress) cause in South Africa. Using Jose Romussi's style of embellishing photographs, I embroidered onto images of protest to illustrate that Black voices were no longer suppressed and that the whole world was watching, listening and supporting them.
In protest of Apartheid in South Africa, activist and performer Steven Van Zandt and record producer Arthur Baker formed a music group called 'Artists Against Apartheid'. The artists produced a song and an album titled 'Sun Sity' in which they protested against playing the Sun City Resort due to it's endorsement of Apartheid. When researching the music video to the song I noticed that, due to the quality of the images, the pixels emulated many small dots. I portrayed this idea onto the bruising and scars of 3 young boys who were badly beaten whilst protesting. Due to the black & white palette of the images, I think that the colour helps to highlight the areas the boys faced injury and swelling.
I also began to display the statistics of blacks to whites in polka dot form to highlight that although they were the majority, Blacks were still seen as inferior.
"For every white person, there was about four black people"
PRINT SAMPLES
1/9
We were given set locations to shoot our photo's and I received the university's print studio. As my cape was bright and busy I decided to create a celebratory scene of joy and party to symbolise the end of Apartheid which did eventually come in 1994.
DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
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