Joe Slovo Township

My latest map quilt is finished. It is called Joe Slovo Township. it is 39 x 50 inches.

Some time ago I visited this informal settlement which is on the edge of Llanga Township in Cape Town. There we met a small boy , about three years old, in a sunny yellow T shirt who kept grabbing at my camera. Unlike all the other children who loved to have their photos taken in comical poses and then look at the result on the digital camera screen, this child wanted to be behind the lens. I showed him how to do it and he happily took photos of all his neighbours' houses. Good ones at that!  I always remember the child we know only as Joe Slovo Boy.

So when I was thinking of what the next quilt in my maps series would be, Joe Slovo came to mind. I began to read up on the history of it both before and after our visit. These shacks lie along side the Settler's Way, the main road in from the city to the airport and in the run up to the FIFA Word Cup attempts were made to improve housing for the residents. Cynics would say to make the road less unattractive for passing tourists.

Of course, to build better housing on a densely populated area of shacks means people have to be moved out so building can begin.  The plan was to remove the residents to transitory accommodation in Delft some 30km away. This was strenuously opposed as there was no transport or jobs in Delft and a High Court case ensued. When some building work was completed there was controversy about who was being allocated the housing. I often wonder what, in all of this, happened to Joe Slovo Boy.

The details of this story are  written on the city blocks part of the quilt which was then darkened with Neocolour Crayon and stitched over with freemotion quiting in the shapes of shacks. The writing is therefore a little more obscured than in my previous map quilts but still readable close up. The background is stamped and scraped with screen inks, the road painted with textile paint. Most of the fabrics for the shacks are either my monoprints of fabrics from the African Fabric Shop. The fence is paint and abacca tissue. The rail road and river is couched embroidery thread.

Of course, now it is finished, all I can see in it is its faults...!