These posters were conceived in response to protests that erupted on September 3, 1984, in South Africa’s Vaal Triangle region over rent increases proposed by local town councils. The protests ignited rent boycotts in predominantly black townships such as Alexandria, Soweto, and Tembisa. By withholding rent, protestors refused to finance their own segregation from city centers and their relegation to the meager “matchbox” homes imposed on them by the apartheid state.

After designing the poster, Medu printed it commercially as a template (above) so that the names of specific townships could be inscribed through screen printing, as in the “Soweto” poster.