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Celebrating Fietas

JOBURG - A decade after the tragic demolition of vibrant Sophiatown, Pageview, also known as Fietas or Vrededorp, was slowly 'cleared' of its Indian, coloured, Malay, and black residents.

Sophiatown and Martindale were not the only suburbs to endure forced removals in our corner of Johannesburg.

A decade after the tragic demolition of vibrant Sophiatown, Pageview, also known as Fietas or Vrededorp, was slowly ‘cleared’ of its Indian, coloured, Malay, and black residents.

The Sophiatown Heritage and Cultural Centre is currently presenting innovative photographer Mike Feldman’s exhibition Live and Let Live: Celebrating Fietas.

Feldman documented the removal of the neighbourhood of Fietas on camera when the neighbourhood was demolished in 1971.

Fietas was one of the ‘western area’ neighbourhoods that captured the essence of multi-racial living and community defiance against apartheid. Musicians, businessmen and women, medical professionals great athletes and artists emerged from its streets. This is a place forever canonised in the hearts and minds of its former inhabitants.

Under the Group Areas Act, the apartheid government forcibly removed the thousands of people who called Fietas home and physically destroyed most of the buildings that comprised the heart of the neighbourhood. In some cases, the government didn’t even wait until the families had vacated to begin bulldozing. Today, only a handful of the original buildings still stand.

The Sophiatown Heritage and Cultural Centre is presenting this exhibition not only to pay homage to the Fietas community as it once was, but also to celebrate the legacy of organised defiance in Fietas.

This is to honour the spirit of its former residents, and to highlight the shared history between Fietas and Sophiatown.

The exhibition will run until Friday, 18 July.

The Heritage Centre is located at 73 Toby Street at the corner of Toby and Edward streets in Sophiatown, next to Westdene.

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