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Protest in colour: Murals in South Africa
Kim Poldner, Africancolours.net
January, 2007

http://southafrica.africancolours.net/content/11196%22%20target=%22_blank

You see them everywhere in South Africa. Colourful paintings on walls of bus stations, prisons and libraries. Painted by professional visual artists, often together with children and people from the neighbourhood. In Europe you don’t find them often, but you can admire them all over the Caribbean and in African countries such as South Africa. They are often works of art that visualize a protest against the political climate or images which show developments in society.

Popular
South Africa has a rich but bloody history. For years the country moaned under Apartheid and millions of people suffered from poverty and racism. After the release of Nelson Mandela in ’92, murals quickly appeared in the streets. Some of them expressed a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo. Others were a means to inform and empower a large group of poor and illiterate people. After the democratic elections in 1994 murals became more and more popular. Especially after the new government actually allowed people to paint them.

Image Courtesy of Community Mural Projects Trust

Aids education
During the mid nineties the country struggled with new problems. AIDS hit the records and millions of people became infected with the HIV virus. The new government discovered the power of murals and used them as a tool to educate. Artists were commissioned to paint images of people in love, showing condoms and the famous AIDS ribbon. They were messages to encourage people to have safe sex.

Image Courtesy of Community Mural Projects Trust

Rainbow Nation
Not only AIDS is a favourite topic in murals. Democracy, freedom and images of daily life are popular too. Traditional stories that used to be told around the campfire are now being visualised in images on the wall. Another theme is ‘rainbow nation’, a term introduced by president Thabo Mbeki. As a reaction to Apartheid, he wanted to focus on the colourful diversity of people in his country. In murals you often find people with different skin colours brotherly depicted next to each other.

Different functions
This is one of the characteristics that make murals so unique: it can be a tool to bring people together. While painting, artists from different backgrounds work side by side on one mural. A work of art can also provide a bridge between cultures when it is painted on a strategic location on the border of two segregated areas (for example a black and white township). Apart from being a bridge, an educational tool and a sign of protest, murals have a decorative function. They brighten up dull public buildings, bring colour in the streets and give people something to think about.

Image Courtesy of Community Mural Projects Trust

Graffiti
Murals are often related to graffiti because they are painted in public places. But there are important differences between both art expressions. Graffiti is painted with spray cans while murals are painted with paint and brush. Graffiti often exists of texts and slogans, while murals show more images. Graffiti often has an illegal character while permission needs to be granted for painting a mural. A last difference between graffiti and murals is that murals are often painted by a group of professional artists, while graffiti can be an activity of a rebellious individual.

Image Courtesy of Community Mural Projects Trust

Advertisement
Nowadays a lot of murals function as billboards for advertising campaigns. Some people view this development as degradation of the art. Opponents point out the advantage of employment for artists. Companies often pay well when they commission an artist to paint a mural. And not only professional artists earn a salary this way, other talented people who help with the painting process, can make some money too.

Monument and tourist attraction
A lot of murals are temporary depictions of society. They are often not being valued and sometimes get destroyed or painted over. Fortunately others make their way to becoming a monument or even a tourist attraction. Because they make an important statement or are dated in a historical timeframe such as the first democratic elections in the mid nineties. People in the neighbourhood will respect the mural because it is a way to generate income when tourists visit. In that way an important document of South-African history can be preserved.

*Kim Poldner holds a BA in art and an MA in Sociology. She wrote her thesis on the South-African mural art scene. After that she organized an exchange project between young Dutch and South African artists. Together they created a large ‘freedom’ mural in the city of Amsterdam.

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