A Walk in the City Sandile Radebe: solo exhibition

Photo by Sandile Radebe

Artist’s Statement: “This Orlando west mural was a response to an invitation extended to me by the ‘June 16 Art-Rising’ initiative. The intention was to commemorate the June 16 1976 uprisings through the theme ‘siyakhumbula’ (“we remember”). My aim was to highlight the town planning behind the Orlando township, which was designed to uphold the apartheid ends of controlling the movement of the inhabitants of this township in particular and South Africans in general. Here I redrew the “…winning design of 1931 by Kallenbach, Kennedy and Furner for a new township on the farm Klipspruit no. 8” (Clive Chipkin, 1993: p.206). The site specificity of this mural allowed for the inhabitants of this township to relate to this design by presenting it to them on a smaller scale, i.e. the wall. Walking this terrain for many years helped them to decipher this intricate spiderweb-like pattern and what it signifies. This as a way of reminding the inhabitants about their current location and its function. The design echoes that of a prison in the sense that it does not allow for free movement within its ambit. This means that in the case of a civil unrest, all movement could be monitored and contained. This is exactly how the riots on 16 June 1976 were contained by apartheid security agents. In this mural, I am showing the residents that even in the new dispensation the grand design of apartheid still remains as a legacy that we need to remember so we navigate our surroundings more critically.”