by Emile Maurice, exhibition curator — Interruptions: Posters from the Community Arts Project Archive, on behalf of the Centre for Humanities Research at UWC During the 1980s and 1990s, hundreds of ordinary people from all walks of life interrupted their daily roles to become makers of images that eventually helped revolutionise South Africa. Sixty of these powerful hand-made posters will be on display in Interruptions: Posters from the Community Arts Project Archive, an exhibition at Cape Town City Hall that is part of the Cape Town Open Design Festival, 13-23 August 2014.
The exhibition of resistance posters comes from the Community Arts Project Archive, located at the University of Western Cape (UWC), and is free and open to the public. These posters are something all South Africans should see – they made a vital contribution towards changing South Africa, and you could say, were part of ‘designing our democracy’, just as was the speech given by Nelson Mandela on the steps of Cape Town City Hall, after his release from prison in 1990.
Interruptions: Posters from the Community Arts Project Archive can be viewed daily at the Open Design Cape Town Festival, 10h00-17h00, at the City Hall (2nd floor) from Wednesday 13 until Saturday 23 August.
Above: Anti-Apartheids Beweging Nederland (AABN) (Anti-Apartheid Movement Netherlands), Angola bevrijd; Vrijheid voor Zuidelijk Afrika (Angola freed; Freedom for South Africa), 1975. Offset litho poster printed in Amsterdam. Artist unknown. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
Organisation unknown, Asiyi eKhayelitsha (We will not go to Khayelitsha), 1985. Silkscreen poster produced and printed at CAP, Cape Town. Artist(s) unknown. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
British Anti-Apartheid Movement, Release Mandela, c 1988. Offset litho poster produced and printed in London. Artist: Surinder Singh. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
Community Arts Project (CAP), Looking Back, 1989. Silkscreen poster produced and printed at CAP, Cape Town, to advertise CAP’s 1989 annual exhibition. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
United Democratic Front (UDF), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), National Education Crisis Committee (NECC), Stay-Away: June 16 – S.A. Youth Day, c 1987. Offset litho poster printed at Esquire Press, Cape Town. Artist unknown. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), COSATU Rally, 1987. Silkscreen poster printed at Esquire Press, Cape Town. Artist) unknown. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
Cape Youth Congress (CAYCO), Save the Patriots, 1988. Silkscreen poster produced and printed at CAP, Cape Town. Artist(s) unknown. This poster was made as part of a campaign against political executions. The face featured on the poster is that of Solomon Mahlangu, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cadre who was executed by hanging at Pretoria Central Prison in 1979. His execution provoked international protest. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives
Organisation unknown, Release Mandela, c 1988. Silkscreen poster produced and printed at CAP, Cape Town, in support of the campaign to release Nelson Mandela from jail. Artist(s) unknown. The Release Mandela Campaign was launched in 1980 by Oliver Tambo and the ANC in exile. In 1985 the United Democratic Front (UDF) launched a new campaign for the release of Mandela, warning the government that there would be no peace in South Africa until he was freed. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
Grassroots Community Newspaper, Youth Jive, c 1986. Offset litho poster printed at Esquire Press, Cape Town. Artist(s) unknown. In the 1980s Grassroots gave expression to people’s culture through organising many concerts featuring musicians associated with the liberation movement, such as Basil Coetzee and Winston Mankunku, and bands like the Sharptown Swingsters and Workforce, which featured the legendary alto saxophonist, Robbie Jansen. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU), Have you joined NEHAWU? 1990. Silkscreen poster produced and printed at CAP, Cape Town, to recruit workers to the union. Artist(s) unknown. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), COSATU Rally, 1987. Silkscreen poster printed at Esquire Press, Cape Town. Artist(s) unknown. This poster inviting workers to a rally at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) is designed using the symbolic colours of COSATU. Red stands for the working class; black for the struggle against racial oppression by the black majority; and gold for the wealth of South Africa. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives
Cape Youth Congress (CAYCO), June 16: Viva the Youth, c 1986. Silkscreen poster produced and printed at CAP, Cape Town. Artist(s) unknown. After the 1976 uprising, the liberation struggle entered a new phase, characterised by an ever sharpening confrontation between the masses and the apartheid regime. This poster celebrates the contribution of the youth to this renewed offensive against apartheid. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Let’s Fight for Our Rights: Farmworkers! 1988. Silkscreen poster produced and printed at CAP, Cape Town. Artist(s) unknown. This recruitment poster was made after COSATU had started the Farm Workers Project (FWP) in 1985, with a view to organising these workers. CAP Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives.
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