Local Context • 1945
The increased demand for labour after the economic expansion of South Africa during WWI leads to a temporary relaxation of laws restricting the movement of non-white South Africans. The major influx of workers from the reserves into Johannesburg during the war leads to a severe housing shortage. Thousands of people take matters into their own hands and begin to settle informally in and around major cities.
An entry from the timeline included in the exhibition Dada South? Experimentation, Radicalism and Resistance (2009–2010) at the Iziko National Gallery, which proposed connections between art production in South Africa and abroad against the social and political contexts that framed them. A revised version of this timeline was later featured in the retroactive Flight Paths (2011) exhibition guide commissioned by Clare Butcher.