Sites of identity and resistance: urban community murals and rural wall decoration in South Africa.

In 1977 Thomas Matthews wrote: "Mural painting in South Africa is a domestic art, identified with the dwelling and made by the woman who inhabits it" (Matthews 1977:28). Since then a vibrant and very different tradition of mural painting has emerged: community mural art. Before the 1990s this genre was practiced on a rather small scale, not least because of political repression and a conservative, rigidly regulated bureaucracy. (1) Now, however, it is flourishing in virtually all of South Africa's urban centers.

While mural artists and coordinators define the term "community mural" in various ways, they agree that the practice involves the local community to some degree and that the process of painting the mural is as important as its imagery. Both of these factors distinguish it from commercial or merely decorative urban wall paintings. (2) Community murals are often painted by groups that are highly diverse in terms of race, gender, age, and level of artistic competency. They can, by and large, be seen as part of a larger community arts movement in South Africa, which emerged in an attempt to provide an alternative art education program to ordinary people and to reach out into previously disadvantaged communities (Peffer 1995; van Robbroeck 1991).

This topic has attracted surprisingly little serious attention by art historians to date, but it has been extensively covered by journalists and researchers from other disciplines. These writers have looked at this urban art phenomenon in relation to the traditional homestead mural and even the historical rock painting of the San (Bushmen) of southern African (e.g., Frescura 1989; Loubser 1989, 1991; Felgine 1997; Deliry-Antheaume 1997). While some see these practices as largely independent of one another, others have been tempted to emphasize their links, even to the point of establishing a grand, more or less continuous tradition of southern African mural art, spanning thousands of years. (3)

Intriguing as it may be to view the current community mural as an extension, albeit much transformed, of the rural southern African tradition of wall painting, it is important to acknowledge the significant points of divergence. (4) In the rural practice (Fig. 2), a woman decorates the walls of her own homestead (Matthews 1977), and it becomes an extension of herself, a mark of her identity (Matthews 1979; Changuion 1989). (5) By contrast, urban murals appear rarely on private homes, but rather on public buildings and highly visible enclosure walls. They are usually collaborative efforts dominated by male artists, particularly in black communities. Individual self-expression is suppressed in favor of a mutual style and a theme agreed upon by the artists, usually in consultation with community representatives, sometimes with a sponsor.

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Likewise, the visual evidence reveals few commonalities. Urban murals are almost always figurative, often aiming for academic realism, while the rural paintings, especially those by the Sotho-Tswana (Figs. 3, 4) and Ndebele (Figs. 5, 6), are composed of predominantly flat, geometric designs. Even where figurative elements appear in the homestead murals, the artistic approach is very different. For example, the Ndebele images of objects such as airplanes, electric pylons, lamp posts, telephones, and Western homes are highly geometricized. Venda (Figs. 7, 8) and Xhosa (Fig. 9) line drawings of organic motifs, mostly plants, are also stylized.

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There are certainly connections between the rural and the urban mural based on the inherent properties of the medium. Mural painting, constantly exposed to the elements and dependent on the structural quality of its wall support, is by nature ephemeral. In rural areas it is traditionally a seasonal art form, renewed annually or with every new plastering of the house. Likewise, urban murals, although often executed with great effort and possibly financial expense, are not anticipated to last for more than a few years. Since a mural is considered a temporal work, it is rarely restored when damaged, but rather is painted out or over.

Stylistic Borrowing

Despite their broad differences, one stylistic connection between traditional African and contemporary urban murals can be observed. In an attempt to give urban murals or the spaces they adorn an "African" or "ethnic" character, indigenous mural traditions are sometimes appropriated in a literal or freely modified form. The sources are both San rock paintings and African homestead decoration, most notably Ndebele patterns (Figs. 10, 11). Such murals frequently address a tourist audience, as seen at a Durban beach pavilion, where Bushman figures, painted in traditional rock-art style, are depicted enjoying themselves sunbathing and surfing (Fig. 12).

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While Ndebele murals are usually characterized by a design that covers the entire surface, in most other rural wall-decorating traditions (such as Xhosa, Pedi, Hlubi, and Sotho-Tswana) the painting tends to be used as an accent, confined to specific parts of the homestead (Fig. 9). Ndebele doors and windows are surrounded by a painted frame, and the lower part of the dwelling is distinguished by a dado-like splash zone (Fig. 6). The concept of framing or bordering wall openings or the entire mural is frequently seen in urban mural art. Very often it is Ndebele patterns, literally copied or freely adapted, that are used for such bordering.

What distinguishes Ndebele murals from other southern African wall painting practices, and what at least partially accounts for their commercial success, is their thematic flexibility and adaptability. They are a model of cross-cultural fertilization, incorporating figurative Western images and, sometimes, popular icons that are reinterpreted and translated into the typical stylized designs and patterns. Ndebele designs are constantly adapted to a range of different contexts. Nationally and internationally publicized and disseminated in everything from tourist brochures to souvenir objects, the wall paintings have become a visual cliche for South Africa. Of the various homestead mural traditions found in southern Africa, that of the Ndebele is are exceptionally well suited for appropriation for not only the designs' easy recognizability but also their formal and practical advantages. Ndebele women consistently use commercial paints, whose bright colors are more appropriate to usage in a modern urban setting than are earth colors. Furthermore, contrary to the equally attractive geometric Sotho-Tswana tradition of wall decoration (Fig. 3), which needs fairly large areas to unfold, Ndebele designs can easily be reduced to small sizes and narrow strips, making them ideal for borders and small areas (Fig. 10).

Figurative imagery in Ndebele murals is highly stylized, with areas of color delineated by heavy black outlines. Its extreme simplification and flatness facilitates the desired visual fusion with the overall geometric design. Many urban murals in South Africa display similar characteristics: black outlines, generally simplified flat shapes, and minimal overlapping. This is, of course, not necessarily an indication of Ndebele influence, since murals all over the world tend to manifest this style--either because the artists are not academically trained or because they deliberately choose to increase the legibility and poster-like quality.

In South Africa, however, only the more ambitious and technically sophisticated examples of mural art--such as the gigantic AIDS-awareness mural in Port Elizabeth--consciously employ flattened, outlined images that convey their educational messages. The somewhat crude style of many of the community murals may be attributed to the participation of children or largely untrained artists. Interviews with artists and mural coordinators (6) furthermore suggest that this style seems to carry connotations of primitivism and authenticity, as contrasted with the three-dimensional modeling perceived as representative of the Western academic tradition. It even appears that urban artists on occasion deliberately adopt the flat, outlined Ndebele style to achieve a more "African" look. Some mural groups reject the idea of providing mural-painting workshops, in order to avoid imposing Western standards.

Meaning and Identity

While urban community murals are usually site specific--their content as well as their imagery obviously inspired by the particular surrounding (e.g., Fig. 13)--homestead murals with their colorful, decorative patterns hardly appear to reflect their environment. But like most forms of African visual art, they are highly conceptual and symbolic. Academic research on this aspect of homestead wall-painting has been obstructed, as Annette Loubser (1991) has pointed out, by the reluctance of practitioners to discuss their work freely with outsiders, especially white researchers.

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Only more recent studies have pushed such aspects as function and symbolism into the center of the debate (e.g., Changuion 1989; van Wyk 1993). What appears to be strictly ornamental, most notably the geometric designs of the Sotho-Tswana (Figs. 3, 4) and the more organic but highly stylized motifs of the Xhosa (Fig. 9), is often based on plant and floral forms, signaling a concern with agriculture, growth, and fertility (Matthews 1977; Changuion 1989; van Wyk 1993). (7) Even more obviously inspired by their immediate surroundings are the architectural murals of the Ndebele. Matthews (1977:28) cites an example that symbolizes an entire village, depicting a landscape with houses, courtyards, steps, flowers, trees, and water. In short, what looks like mere decoration may be a landscape, a complex symbolic representation of the environment and a particular world order. The homestead mural--like its urban counterpart--is thus inspired by and closely identified with its environment.

Recent research, most notably by Gary van Wyk (1993), has exposed the close symbolic association of the traditional homestead mural with woman, the land, fertility, and the cosmic order. In a society that gives women little power in the larger decision-making processes, this art form often reflects the individual woman's view of the world (Loubser 1991:54).

The paintings express not only the artist's identity but also--and perhaps more importantly--an ethnic group identity, particularly in situations where that identity may be threatened. This idea is most evident and best researched as it applies to the Ndebele, (8) whose mural practice was strongly encouraged after their defeat by the Boers in the 1880s and subsequent indenture to Boer farmers, which resulted in their forced dispersal over a large area. Further disruption and relocations occurred during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of apartheid policies and the creation of the homeland KwaNdebele (Courtney-Clarke 1986; Loubser 1991; Berman 1993; Powell 1995; Schneider 1999). The murals became a highly visible assertion of Ndebele identity. (9)

In urban community murals, the issue of identity plays a different but no less important role. Franco Frescura (1989:47) argues that in the anonymity of urban life, one's individuality becomes obscured, and people no longer feel the need to display affiliation with an ethnic group in mural paintings. Community murals offer those living in urban areas, especially the townships, new models in their search for identity, an identity that is influenced by the forces of modern development and Westernization.

This process can take different forms. Some murals focus on an identity based on pride in manual labor, featuring heroicized, often monumental representations of black workers, dressed in their typical blue overalls or in mining gear (Fig. 14). These images acknowledge the contribution of South Africa's skilled and unskilled black labor force and celebrate their significance in construction and development, both physically and in a metaphorical sense--building a new nation (Figs. 1, 15).

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Despite this heroicizing theme, it is striking that these murals do not follow the mold of murals in the international social-realist style as found in Mexican wall paintings. By comparison South African community murals lack a sense of urgency, a propagandistic voice, and a clear socialist ideological direction. Many present a more bourgeois identity for the country's black majority. Largely dressed in Western clothes and sometimes with fashionable hairstyles, the young and old, men and women, are shown interacting with one another in typical urban settings (Figs. 16, 17). These city dwellers shop, sell play sports, or spend time in a park. (10)

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Yet other murals explore cultural issues, traditional heritage, and aspects of ethnic identity: images of rural life (Fig. 18), of people wearing beadwork attire, and of traditional African craft and utilitarian objects remind township residents of their roots and cultural heritage. There are also murals that nurture pride in national identity. They invite people to identify with the new South Africa, represented by popular and often cliched symbols such as the flag, portraits of the president or respected political leaders, peace symbols and, of course, the ubiquitous rainbow meant to signify the concept of the new South Africa's multicultural "rainbow nation" (see Marschall 2001).

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Regardless of what these paintings represent, they are almost always intended to beautify their site or the surrounding area. Murals can give character to a place; they can fundamentally change its identity. The Durban landmark now known as the Human Rights Wall, for example, depicts the clauses of the Bill of Rights (Figs. 1, 15). Painted on the wall of the former (now demolished) central prison--symbol of the apartheid regime's history of human-fights violations--it has become a highly symbolic memorial of the successful struggle to overcome that legacy. By reinterpreting its negative associations, the mural has given this site a new identity.

Like the traditional rural mural, usually painted in times of renewal and associated with rites of transition and change (Frescura 1989:4), urban community murals are used to uplift and renew decaying or degraded areas of the city. They can function as a catalyst for community development and change, creating a sense of belonging, an identity for the local community.

Resistance

Community mural art is associated not only with renewal of the physical urban environment but also, more broadly with renewal in a social economic and political sense. Internationally, community mural movements tended to emerge in periods of political or socioeconomic upheaval; they were closely associated with the desire for change. In nearby Mozambique, for example, mural art emerged in the 1970s in the context of the revolutionary struggle and then the transition to a postcolonial society (Sachs 1983).

In South Africa, many wall paintings created during the late 1970s and 1980s were clearly about political protest, but they were usually of a very informal and ephemeral character (Williamson 1989; Sack 1989). The flowering of urban community mural art in the early 1990s is closely linked with gradual political liberation and the end of the apartheid regime. The murals' themes deal in various ways with the visions, problems, and daily reality of a country in the process of transformation.

At first glance, this close relationship between murals and sociopolitical conditions does not seem to apply to rural wall painting. Yet this appearance is deceiving. As mentioned above, Ndebele art began to flourish in direct response to politically motivated dislocation and oppression, first by the colonial and later by the apartheid regime; it was a form of resistance to the threatened loss of cultural identity. Annette Loubser (1991) maintains that it was the self-confidence derived from a strong sense of group identity that empowered the women to play an active and often very effective political role in the struggle against oppression in the 1980s.

Van Wyk's (1993) analysis uncovers the political content of the Sotho-Tswana litema design (Fig. 4). (11) Resistance, he points out, is achieved on two levels. The first relies on Western systems of signification and is thus widely comprehensible by a diverse audience. He gives the example (1993: fig. 1) of a homestead painted in the colors of the ANC flag (green, yellow, and black; the black was represented not in paint but through the dark patch constituted by the open door). The other level is impenetrable to the Western Other. Drawing on feminist and psychoanalytical theory as well as postcolonial discourse, van Wyk argues that while the mural on a woman's house is highly visible and seemingly transparent, secrecy is contained in its design. The Sotho-Tswana woman is "fully self-aware, both of self and of the Western Other" (van Wyk 1993:93), drawing power from her knowledge and imperceptibly inserting herself into history as a political actor.

This relationship between subject and Other is, according to van Wyk, even more evident among the Ndebele, who closely observe the world of the West in articulating their own culture. The Westerner interprets the figurative elements in their murals as curious decorations inspired by Western consumer society or as a simple reflection of materialistic aspirations; (12) van Wyk emphasizes, however, that the Ndebele mural tradition was consciously promoted as an expression of cultural pride and of resistance to colonialism.

Traditional African mural art, closely identified with the land and the female body, became a site of resistance and an expression of cultural identity in a country where a large percentage of the population was dislocated from their ancestral territory. The first general elections of 1994 brought an end to apartheid oppression, but the issue of land is still at the center of the political debate in the new South Africa. Many black South Africans are reclaiming their land or property they lost to the implementation of the Group Areas Act at the height of the apartheid regime.

Similarly, the claim for land or space is central to urban mural art. The postelection disillusionment prevalent in many sectors of South African society indicates that the formal end of apartheid has not always translated into profound changes in entrenched attitudes. The art of urban wall painting is a way of reclaiming lost territory--in both a literal and a figurative sense. It challenges reactionary positions by publicly asserting and reinforcing other value systems. Murals appropriate spaces and buildings, and through these sites they celebrate cultural difference; they recover history and aspects of traditional heritage; they offer unpretentious, candid glimpses into the activities and environment of daily life. Murals essentially acknowledge and assert the presence of people who were not permitted to occupy these spaces in the past or whose identity and cultural heritage were--and often still are--ignored or discredited.

Popular Art/Traditional Art

In an illuminating analysis, Zoe Strother (1995) attempts to apply the concept of popular culture to the realm of traditional art by pointing out the centrality of audience reception. Her argument is based on a case study tracing the creation of a new mask type among the Eastern Pende of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The success of the mask is measured by its positive audience reception, which leads to its subsequent imitation and eventually its inclusion in the wider canon of mask types. Strother draws an analogy with the launching of a new television show, whose popularity is determined by audience response, which in turn has been shaped by specific historical, sociological, and political factors. The same clearly applies to community mural art.

Popular art is often posited in opposition to traditional art, the former being associated with dynamism, innovation, fashion, and topicality, while the latter is perceived to be more static, regulated from the outside by convention. However, Strother argues that given current patterns of migration and trade contacts, one can no longer separate rural from urban dwellers; both groups must be considered as "inhabiting the same world and time, as grappling with many of the same problems" (Strother 1995:33).

In this sense there are important links between urban and homestead murals, most notably with regard to the Ndebele's incorporation of icons of Western culture. Second, the products of traditional culture, just like those of urban popular culture, may very well show "a topicality that may be political and contended" (Strother 1995:33)--a fact that van Wyk (1993) has attempted to show with regard to South African rural wall painting. Third, analyzing traditional art through the lens of popular culture studies stresses invention within the community rather than influence from the outside, as well as "collaborative teamwork, competition, and dialogue with convention through the audience" (Strother, p. 33). Here again, one can draw parallels with South African homestead murals, most obviously with Ndebele examples. Although Ndebele mural art is no longer practiced on a large scale, those who do paint often work very competitively. Some women, most notably Esther Mahlangu, have even established an international reputation and have crossed over into different media (e.g., Mahlangu's painting of a BMW car). Especially in recent years, the mural artists have also been greatly spurred on by tourist and media interest. Fourth, this approach acknowledges the "porous" nature of cultural categories--the fact that some aspects of cultural production once considered popular art can later be considered "high art," or vice versa33 This presents an interesting perspective on the way some contemporary community murals may be perceived and classified in the future.

According to Franco Frescura, "... the artists of the southern African region have managed to establish a number of distinctive pictorial traditions, each drawing deep from the economic activities, mystical beliefs, social mores and political concerns of the communities they arose from" (1989:4/5). In sum, the links between rural and urban mural traditions are to be found in the essential motivation for painting the walls and in the specific concerns and conditions that inform their design. Both types of murals are about asserting identity and resistance; they create a sense of place and ownership; they "talk" in a specific language targeted at a local community audience. Both incorporate themes, imagery, forms and colors that emerge from the prevailing circumstances and conditions of their sites. Given that community murals are site-specific and are influenced by their surrounding environment, one can expect vastly different visual expression between urban and rural contexts. Ultimately, the fact remains that mural art has a long tradition in southern Africa. It deserves more public attention and serious scholarly interest.

[This article was accepted for publication in August 2001.]

(1.) Many informal murals, which could also be classified as graffiti, were painted mostly in the townships in the 1970s and '80s to convey messages of political protest. These murals were usually painted clandestinely and disappeared soon afterward. For a fuller discussion of South African mural art of the 1970s and '80s, see Marschall 2000a.

(2.) South Africa has a long tradition of muralized advertisement, particularly in the townships, executed by sign writers, graphic artists, and painters. Many of today's community mural artists started out as commercial wall painters. A few murals by individual artists, sometimes executed with the help of fine-art students, were painted in the 1980s, usually in the context of urban renewal and city beautification.

(3.) Matthews (1977:31), for example, argues that Xhosa mural art was not necessarily derived from the Sotho with the spread of the rondawel-type homestead; it may well be indigenous and has likely been influenced by San rock art.

(4.) In fact, it may be argued that the connections between South African urban mural art and similar modes of expression in, for instance, urban centers in the Americas and other parts of Africa are stronger.

(5.) This may be slightly changing today; for example, Loubser (1991) mentions that among the Ndebele, men are not barred from painting. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the practice of mural art is still overwhelmingly associated with women.

(6.) For a list of all persons interviewed, consult the bibliography section of Marschall 2002.

(7.) Matthews (1977:31), for example, suggests that the verticals in Xhosa murals can be read as plant stems, and the dots as seeds.

(8.) The Ndebele people are divided into three major groups, only one of which, the so-called Southern Ndebele (also sometimes called Mipogga or Ndzundza Ndebele), are associated with the practice of mural painting discussed here.

(9.) It is unknown how long this tradition has been practiced, but it appears that the oldest type of homestead decoration consisted of finger-drawn lines incised into the wet plaster. Possibly around the turn of the last century or early twentieth century, fairly simple designs were painted in earth colors ("archaic style"). Only during the middle of the twentieth century, when commercial paints became available, did the present practice of bright, elaborate designs, much inspired by Ndebele beadwork, emerge.

(10.) For a more detailed discussion of these murals see Marschall 2000b.

(11.) Litema designs are incised or inscribed into the wet plaster with fingers or other objects. The term is derived from the word for "plowed field," which the designs clearly resemble (van Wyk 1993:83).

(12.) It must be noted that Powell (1995:60-65) presents evidence, based on interviews with Ndebele women painters, that support such a reading.

(13.) Strother (1995:33) presents the example of Shakespeare, whose works were experienced as popular culture in America during the nineteenth century but are now considered "high" art.

References cited

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Schneider, E.A. 1999. "Ndebele Dolls and Walls," in Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region, ed. E. Dell. Exhibition catalogue, pp. 139-49. Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery and Human Rousseau.

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Van Wyk, G. 1993. "Through the Cosmic Flower: Secret Resistance in the Mural Art of Sotho-Tswana Women," in Secrecy: African Art That Conceals and Reveals, ed. M.H. Nooter, pp. 81-97. New York: Museum for African Art; and Munich: Prestel.

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SABINE MARSCHALL, a German art historian permanently residing in South Africa, is coordinator of the Cultural and Heritage Tourism Programme at the University of Durban-Westville. She recently published a book on community mural art in South Africa.