Report from the 7th Annual Design Indaba
Welcome, ID Magazine readers. Read to the bottom to see examples of great work from South Africa.
At a place and time
8:51am February 24th. Arabella Sheraton Hotel Cape Town, South Africa.
Driving and being driven through a foreign country gives one a uniquely pleasurable view of a new place. This is the promenade writ large and fast: a zoom through unfamiliar streets to an unknown destination with only the endless awaiting. Perhaps that is what makes driving so nice. It gives one the impression of an endless band laid across the country, a trail of discovery that in all of your earnest exploring you may never exhaust. Such is the privilege of the foreigner: to see it all for the first time.
Yet this individuality is quickly draining from the center of the world's well known cities. Baltimore and Cape Town make unlikely sister cities. Could it be out of design that the latter has adopted the former's formula for waterside success? While there is no doubt that the creators of this commercial experience knew of other precedents around the globe, I'm more inclined to believe that the likeness between the two locations is a coincidence of capital. This would provide further proof of an innate quality to the product of capital's sheer will-- a true global condition.
9:01am February 26th. Arabella Sheraton Hotel Cape Town, South Africa.
Speeding through down the N2 and stumbling through rough Japanese with Shigeo Fukuda. He asks me what "my work is" and I stutter for a second unable to answer. Obviously he assumed I was a speaker with the illustrious past to match but how does a student answer that question from a man like him? Honestly-- and the conversation floats along like leaves in Shonagon's garden.
11:17pm February 27th. Arabella Sheraton Hotel Cape Town, South Africa.
More than a few times I've been asked whether Cape Town is living up to my expectations. Crafting a careful response to this question is quite tricky given that South Africa does not enjoy a prominent position in the minds of most Americans. Memories of social injustice too similar to our own history and the simple fact that JFK-CPT is one of the longest commercial flights in the world gives some insight into why it's not on our minds. That being said, Cape Town and its surroundings fulfill and surpasses any rumor of natural beauty you may have heard. That the people are affable and the food quite good make life in Cape Town that much better. Many of the locals that I've met speak with a glint in their eye of Tokyo, New York, etc. but always reserve a line of qualification at the end of our conversations: "I like those places, but I will always come back to South Africa." Perhaps a better judge of the charming effect that this country imposes upon its visitors is the fact that many of the speakers I've chatted with have taken time out of the International Designer's Standard 200-Days-a-Year Travel Schedule to relax in Cape Town for a bit.
5:12pm February 28th. Arabella Sheraton Hotel Cape Town, South Africa.
Karim Rashied is a close talker. He stands very close, looming almost, and speaks extremely quickly. Despite sometimes getting a bad rap for producing work so unabashedly formal, his presentation proved there's really more going on. Through a rhizomatic verbal clip, Rashid explored anecdotes and thought wanders occasionally interrupting himself with brief asides about one of 300+ images in a loop on the projection behind him. A successful presentation because, among other things, it contrasted so brilliantly with the standard 'this is my work, these are my ideas' talks. "To be a designer is to look at the world as though you don't belong to it."
12:44pm March 1st. Amtrak Acela, Northbound through Connecticut.
Rocks line a New London beach where swans are neck deep after lunch. The air is still but cold and I'm going home. Ten days in Africa terminated by a twenty one hour journey spanning Cape Town, Johannesburg, Dakar, New York, and finally Providence, all in the name of design.
A little more organized
Finally with a minute to sift through my notes.
During cocktails Fernando Guiterrez suggested that Moscow is on fire, the next place, ready to re-enter the world. Tyler Brule suggested via video link that "Portuguese Power" will be the next force in the global market (design world?) while the conference organizers and attendees were constantly asking how South Africa can secure a place in this future. It is the age of the developing economy. Junkspace has arrived.
A tour around one giant tiff opened in Photoshop and panned across with the 'hand' tool provided the bulk of Ross Lovegrove's presentation. The image depicted a backlit shelf in his office that bears a striking resemblance to the display window of Villa La Roche that houses its own collection of objet type. Lovegrove's shelf is chock full of inspiring objects, a junkspace microcosm, both from abroad and his own studio-- a Mazda tail light (he loves to hate car design), bone fragments, chair maquettes, etc.
At one point Lovegrove told the audience that "strangeness is a consequence of innovative thinking," which is a careful choice of words. Although "strangeness" probably inspires thoughts of alienation I'd like to cite the much-trotted PLC as something that is in no way un-strange.
Kenya Hara, design mastermind of Muji, introduced an exhibition he curated entitled "Re-Design: Products of the 21st Century" which asked 32 Japanese artists, architects, and designers to estrange the everyday. Not surprisingly Shigeru Ban proposed an environmentally responsible square-section toilet paper roll (pictured in the title graphic) that uses its shape to create resistance against the wall which results in less paper waste. Kaoru Mende trades frugality for fun in his proposal for matches created from twigs. Hara noted that "matches have gradually disappeared with the appearance of disposable lighters and other ignition devices. But today, when we feel the need to build a real fire in our daily lives, I believe our attitude should sometimes be a bit more sensitive and spiritual." Unfortunately there is not better documentation of this exhibition online but there is a a transcription of Hara's speech.
Other interesting bits: Rashid Din's project for Heathrow's new Terminal 5 interior using massive amounts of LCD; Dan Pearson's Roppongi Hills rooftop gardens; Isle Crawford's work at SOHO House NYC; Vince Frost's work for Zembla and everyone else; John Heskett's seemingly unending supply of design-business knowledge.
The top of the crop
Brief notes on some of the best in art & design that I saw in South Africa.
A curious man was ever-present at the conference with a Sony digicam, microphone, and impeccable fashion. Gavin Elder has a hard time staying in one place but spent a chunk of his childhood in ZA so we'll include him here. You may be able to find small video snippets available online.
Richard Hart is one of the reasons I know that Durban is the real creative center of South Africa. His graphic work under the name Disturbance Design pulls no punches. Hart also edits and designs Sheet magazine which comes out sporadically. One of the things I like most about sheet is that it renounces the gloss and the would-be trucker hat aesthetic at the same time.
If Richard has anyone to worry about it's Peet Pienaar of Daddy Buy me a Pony. Afro magazine is the most impressive print piece I've seen in quite a while. Structured as a diminutive packet of feuilles, Afro is blazing new trails with layouts that combine a delicate ornamentality with bold photographic spreads and text treatments. Afro magazine is a remix of itself. ignoring the editorial content, this is Visionaire if it were locked into the paper medium.
Wandering through the expo hall I found an array of small pictures on the wall by Claire Sarembock. Each one depicts a life's objects neatly arranged in a little box. I instantly bought two of them. She describes them as "internal landscapes" that "appear to hold their own beauty independent to the private memories they foster."
Finally, we'll sneak a marketing campaign in because it was so damned smart. Graham Warsop started the conference with a collection of work from his Jupiter Drawing Room office. This project promotes Nike's involvement with the Paralympics.
"He only missed gold by a hundredth of a second."
In addition to the posters and other collateral, the JDR proposed these "ambient advertisements" to be deployed in the parking lot of stores promoting the Paralympics. It's a quick spray of paint and suddenly this icon of our lives has a new meaning. Witty and economical-- what we should hope all advertising campaigns can be.
--Posted 03/19/04 06:37AM