Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design

Kries, Mateo & Amelie Klein

ISBN 10: 393193652X / ISBN 13: 9783931936525

Editore: Vitra Design Museum, Rhein, 2015

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Folio, 345 pp, VG+ in moderately worn wraps (previous owner's name inked small on top text block edge). Text in English. Profusely illustrated in color and b&w. Includes short biographies of designers.

Codice articolo 12366

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design
• Editore: Vitra Design Museum, Rhein
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 393193652X
• ISBN 13: 9783931936525
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: Very Good +

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

"An extraordinary in-depth view of the dynamo that is contemporary African design." –Rachel Pulfer

Over the past decade, Africa has experienced a tremendous political, economic and technological transformation. Spearheading this shift is a new generation of entrepreneurs and doers who have opened up a fresh view of this vast and diverse continent, using the Internet to make themselves visible. Developed in collaboration with renowned curator Okwui Enwezor, Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design embraces this new perspective, seeking to reveal the continent as a thinktank and investigating the intriguing possibility of a new understanding of design. It focuses on a generation of African designers, architects and artists who transcend the boundaries between design, art, photography, architecture and urbanism. Utilizing traditional techniques as comfortably as new media such as Facebook and mobile banking systems, these designers are establishing a new design identity—and thus a new future—for the continent. Making Africa examines everyday life through such items as furniture, posters, fashion garments and accessories, including J.D. Okhai Ojejkere's "Nigerian hairstyles" and Cyrus Kabiru's eyewear sculptures as well as the objects of Cheick Diallo, fashion by Buki Akib, the photographs of Mário Macilau and Okhai Ojeikere, the architecture of Francis Kéré, the animation art of Robin Rhode and many other creations of designers from different disciplines. Grounding these new movements in a larger historical context, Making Africa also takes a look at the first generation of postcolonial Africa.

Dalla quarta di copertina

Making Africa« takes a fresh look at African design. For the first time, we have a book that focuses on creative accomplishments on the continent, without being obsessed with the usual tropes of recycling, humanitarian design or traditional crafts. Instead, »Making Africa« shows a new generation of designers who use their work as a tool for economic, political and social change and therefore also to create a new future for the continent. Their creative output defies all definitions of genres – crossing over classical fields such as furniture design, product design and typography to encompass digital media, art, photography, architecture and film. A large section of the catalogue is dedicated to documenting work by over 120 protagonists of Africa’s new creative epoch – including Cyrus Kabiru, Cheick Diallo, Mário Macilau, Francis Kéré, David Adjaye, Kunlé Adeyemi, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Robin Rhode, Alaforu Sikoki, Selly Raby Kan and many more. The historical and theoretical background is explored in essays and discussions with Okwui Enwezor, Koyo Kouoh, Edgar Pieterse and Amelie Klein, among others. These are complemented by statements from around 70 other experts from Africa, who met at interviews and think tanks in cities such as Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos, Dakar, Nairobi and Cairo. This is a book about the future of Africa and about a new, more open way of understanding design – which means it is also a book about what design can achieve in the 21st century.