Dumile Feni  (b. 1942, Worcester)

Township

ca. 1970, ink on paper, 42 x 59 cm.

Grosvenor Gallery © Dumile Feni Family Trust 2021

Compared to African Guernica and Railway Accident, Feni’s Township seems calmer, less chaotic. The drawing depicts housing that Feni might have seen living in Soweto. They are built in a similar style, so they might have been council housing. A nondescript building is seen faintly in the background. Even though the drawing seems “quiet”, there is an underlying tension in the work. Unlike the typical township scenes of artworks made during the same time, there are no people present in the artwork. The windows are darkened with repetitive mark making, so we can’t see what it looks like inside - perhaps the windows are boarded up, or it’s empty inside, its inhabitants long gone. The work is rendered in crisp, ruler-straight lines, unlike Feni’s other, more expressionist works. But the perspective has been distorted, making the buildings seem unsettling. The sharp contrast of the shading also contributes to the creepy atmosphere. Furthermore, we see barbed wire fencing peeking from behind the houses. Townships were established so that a cheap black labour force could live in close(ish) proximity to cities while still being as far away from white suburbs as possible. After the Group Areas Act of 1950, the number of townships that were built exploded, as black and brown South Africans were forced out of their neighbourhoods into townships across South Africa. It remains a unique symbol of the problems facing South Africa after the 1994 democratic elections.