Changing the city after our heart’s desire: Creative protest in Cape Town

Abstract

In the city of Cape Town, ubiquitous stencilled texts proclaim “This city works for a few”, “Remember Marikana”, “Dehumanization Zone”, “Not yet Uhuru”, “Gentrinaaiers”; there are also stickers saying “Non-Poor Only”. The image of Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki, an iconic symbol of the Marikana massacre, predominates on walls, road signs and bridges. These texts, labels and symbols interject city texts into commercial and road signage to reveal the “legibility” of the city as operating in the interests of capital while maintaining the segregationist spatial designs of apartheid. This article discusses the artists and art collectives, specifically Xcollectiv and Tokolos Stencils, that were part of the exhibition Plakkers, curated by Justin Davy, as forms of creative protest that widen the space of contention, uncover the normalized violence entrenched in the logic of improvement districts and engage with the continued erasure of people’s histories.

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