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Habitat is collaborating
with African designers
for an exhibition due to
be staged during LDF
LATEST STORIES
LONDON DESIGN FESTIVAL
Click for gallery 1 of 11
Graphic Africa
Pélengana
18 July 2013
Fermented mud fabrics from Habitat.
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FEATURES
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The problem with
It is one of the more unexpected sells for September's London Design Festival (LDF), yet
potentially one of the more intriguing too. The furniture retailer Habitat is staging an
exhibition of African design and launching a textile collection developed in collaboration
with the Malian designer Boubacar Doumbia.
The exhibition, Graphic Africa, has grown out of Design Network Africa (DNA), an
Africa-­‐wide design programme funded by Denmark's DANIDA overseas development policy.
Overseen by the South Africa-­‐based design agents Trevyn and Julian McGowan -­‐ who will
also curate the Habitat show -­‐ DNA is a business-­‐based programme in which African
designers may mentor one another, discuss how to gain access to the international market
and begin to assemble a coherent design industry across Africa.
"The problems in African design are largely of disconnection," says Trevyn. "There are
issues of reaching market, shipping costs, transport, bribery and corruption. Work can sit in
a port for three months. There's a lack of infrastructure and a lack of materials. But what if
you group together and share those problems?"
The programme, which remains in a pilot phase, groups together 16 design studios from
across West, South and East Africa ("Tinding a designer in North Africa isn't easy," says
Julian) for what are described as "therapy sessions": group discussions and workshops
across Africa in which participants discuss their individual needs and potential solutions to
their problems.
The studios involved in the programme range from social projects -­‐ such as Gone Rural
(http://www.goneruralswazi.com), a collective of 750 Swazi women working with
indiginous grasses -­‐ through to more traditional designers such as the Bauhaus-­‐inspired
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2013/07/19 11:58 AM
design
education
Graphic Africa
| News
| Disegno
Daily
Doktor & Misses (http://www.dokterandmisses.com) and the ENSCI-­‐trained Cheick Diallo
Kintbury
20 September 2012
(http://www.diallo-­‐design.com).
A Royal College of Art
project poses an
uncomfortable question:
are young designers
starved of practical
manufacturing
experience? 
A central aspect of the DNA programme are masterclasses, where industry Tigures guide and
advice the studios. At one such event in Ghana, attended by Habitat's senior designer
Rebecca Hoyes, the Graphic Africa project began to take form.
(/features
/the-problemwith-designeducation)
Hoyes began a collaboration with the Malian textile designer Boubacar Doumbia ("From a
price perspective he made sense for Habitat and we trusted him to get product fairly
quickly"). The pair decided to work with bogolan, a traditional dyed cotton that Doumbia
uses heavily in his work. Created through a combination of fermented mud-­‐dyes gathered
from riverbeds and a chalk resist that deTines pattern, bogolan creates linear,
monochromatic textiles.
"I’m a print designer, so was fascinated by someone working with cotton using river mud
rather than the chemicals we use in Europe," says Hoyes. "You can create something so
beautiful from something so simple and I was intrigued and inspired by that. It was an
opportunity to play with the technique."
Hoyes' designs are based on Doumbia's existing work ("It’s important you don’t come in and
completely change the aesthetic of the craft"), adapted into commercial cushions. Having
produced the designs in a period of 72 hours, Hoyes placed an order for 80 cushions from
Doumbia, who will now create the textiles from his base in Mali where he runs a cooperative
and workshop.
Alongside Doumbia's textiles, the remaining 15 DNA studios will also exhibit work created
or adapted to Tit Habitat's theme for the coming season: linearity. "Which is actually a really
valuable experience for African designers, many of whom aren't used to working from a
brief," says Julian. "One designer said that the theme didn’t Tit his remit and didn’t feel
African enough, but we don’t want that: We want the African aesthetic to Tit a brief, which is
what all designers have to do."
http://disegnodaily.com/news/graphic-africa
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Doryun Chong
appointed chief
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The Farrell Review
widens its
workshop
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"African design is often inspired by nature, it’s very soulful and it’s got narrative,” says
Trevyn. “These are all qualities to pursue, but it still needs to Tit with an international
market. There’s no point designing beautiful things and then not selling them. That's not
sustainable."
The resulting lamps, chests of drawers and chairs designed in the programme will be
displayed as gallery pieces during LDF at Habitat’s Platform space on the King’s Road. The
exhibition is the latest indication of a growing interest in African design, following in quick
succession to Beatrice Galilee's Afrofuture, an exhibition speculating on the future of design
in Africa staged earlier this year in Milan.
"Maybe everyone is a little bored with places like Indonesia and China," says Trevyn. "We’ve
seen the output of those places for a long time, but because Africa is quite difTicult to access,
people have been nervous to look there too. Craft is centuries old in Africa, but design is
relatively new, not more than 10 or 15 years, and people are starting to see that there’s an
opportunity there.
"In fact that newness is the reason why we need to speak of 'African design'; it's still in its
infancy and it needs to be held by the concept of the continent."
Alongside furthering DNA’s aim of exposing its designers to the international scene, Graphic
Africa also hopes to act as a counterpoint as to the negative stereotypes of roughness and
jerry-­‐rigging that have become associated with some African design.
"There is perhaps a tendency for things to get to the end user without things being ironed
out and certainly European design is on a trajectory that will be hard to catch up with
because there simply aren't the facilities in Africa,” says Julian. “But that doesn’t mean we
need to go down the route of playing on sympathy for that.”
"We're very aware of that view of African design as a little rough and a hard weld, but that’s
what we want to move away from,” adds Trevyn. “Projects need to be viewed on a
like-­‐for-­‐like basis, not 'this is bad, but good for Africa.’ Design should be judged on its
individual merits. Hopefully Graphic Africa will do that."
RELATED LINKS
Design Network Africa
(http://designnetworkafrica
.wordpress.com)
Habitat
(http://www.habitat.co.uk)
WORDS Oli Stratford
Graphic Africa will be on display at Habitat's Platform Space on London's King's Road between 14
September and 20 October as part of the London Design Festival
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