Hostel culture on show

HOSTEL culture during the apartheid era and the transformation of these single sex dormitories into family units is captured beautifully in an exhibition at The Workers Museum in Newtown.

Portable radios kept hostel dwellers entertainedPortable radios kept hostel dwellers entertainedIn more than 350 images, Closed Constructions, as the exhibition is called, explores the hostel system through the lenses of some 35 photographers, according to Daphine Mlambo, a researcher at Khanya College.

“A remarkable body of oral history interviews with residents of the hostels round up the comprehensive visual narrative. It is a story of enclosure and exclusion. It is a story of survival in inhumane housing conditions and of generations struggling with family disintegration and poverty,” she explains.

The images capture how hostel dwellers create their own communities, finished with small businesses, day care centres, places of worship and recreational facilities. It is divided into three folds: Architectures of Exclusion, Hostels to Homes?, and Umbambiswano Lwabashuti, which can be loosely translated as “photographers holding together”.

Under the theme Architectures of Exclusion, the exhibition shows the physical heritage of single sex housing. It also gives evidence of residents’ creative strategies of survival.

“Municipal beer halls have been turned into informal housing, community halls now provide space for childcare facilities or serve as permanent churches, and administration blocks are no longer centres of control but are vacant or are being used as sleeping quarters.”

Homes
Hostels to Homes? focuses more on the people living in the hostels. These people tell their stories in their own words, explaining how they make their living spaces homes. It dwells mainly on hostels for women, and females’ ability to make any environment conducive to living.

In the last theme, Ubambiswano Lwabashuti, some 15 photographers put together works showing the inside and outside of hostel boundaries. “It is evidence of the social and cultural practices of a diverse range of communities and includes studio, event as well as landscape photography,” Mlambo says.

A game of draughts, popular amongst hostel dwellersA game of draughts, popular amongst hostel dwellersThis group of photographers first met in 2009 through the Closed Constructions’ capacity building programme. They are now busy with forming a workers’ co-operative.

The Closed Constructions Public Programme aims to preserve and promote the heritage of migrant workers through educational activities for a range of working class communities. “One of its core principles is to foster dialogue on migration issues across communities from hostels, townships, and informal housing structures as well as the general public.”

According to Mlambo, it offers a platform for debates on the economic challenges and social injustices that migrants face. It also educates on the historical developments many of these challenges.

“Anti-xenophobia work is a particular focus with which the programme aims to contribute positively to an inclusive and diverse South African society.”

Closed Constructions exhibition is open to the public at The Workers Museum in Newtown. The exhibition runs until 15 January 2012.

Khanya College is an independent NGO that helps working class and poor communities. The Workers' Museum is at 52 Jeppe Street in Newtown. It is open from Tuesdays to Sundays, from 9am to 5pm and entrance is free. It is closed every Monday and on Good Friday, Christmas Day and Day of Goodwill.