First Time Voters

Nearly 20 million everyday South Africans shape their country’s future.

Kay Hassan used scraps from a billboard located near his studio to create this image of citizens of all colors and creeds anxiously waiting in line in April 1994 to cast their first vote. After the last of the apartheid laws were repealed South African citizens created a democratic national government charged with writing a new constitution. The African National Congress (ANC) won 62 percent of the vote and formed a government of national unity with the Inkhata Freedom Party and the former ruling National Party.
Hassan’s use of everyday recycled materials recalls South Africa’s tradition of graffiti and poster arts, which afforded artists an inexpensive means for artistic creativity and for protesting the government's oppressive policies during apartheid. First Time Voters actually embodies the principle of collective action in its very form. Through the metaphor of collage and the incorporation of reused banners and advertisements, Hassan literalizes the idea that it would take many distinct voices, harmonized toward a shared end, to build the new democratic nation.