For any visitor to Africa and certainly those interested in exploring the most artistic reaches of the continent, the luxurious coffee table book, Africa Rising – Fashion, Design, and Lifestyle from Africa, is essential pre-travel reading. This weighty tome, co-edited by Design Indaba and German publisher Gestalten, is dedicated to all things African, with insightful essays from experts and artisans who have skillfully contextualized the fresh new voices of the continent’s talented pioneers, projects, people and products. These range from the incredible work of Botswana-based Peter Mabeo, whose contemporary African furniture designs have seen him collaborate with Spanish architect and designer Patricia Arquiola, to South African Nobukho Nqaba’s body of photographic work that handles the themes of migration and foreignness, to the publicly-minded buildings of Ghanian starchitect David Adjaye, whose design of Hallmark House in Johannesburg is nearing completion. Here too you will find the up-and-coming threads of Selly Raby Kane’s energetic fashion line and the soundscapes of Spoek Mathambo’s Fantasma that fix Bantu lyrics to computerized beats.
In short, Africa Rising shows how art and design can be a catalyst for social and economic development, while also celebrating the way it strengthens and unifies cultures. Perhaps calling all stereotypes, cliches and Western-imposed ideas of design into question, the title of the book is a term that was coined in the last decade or so, when six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were from the continent and Africa’s rise seemed certain. However, that optimism was dampened by the commodities crash of 2015 and, more recently, South Africa’s downgrade to junk status. But all is not lost – as the tradition of design becomes more prominent and formalized in Africa, the world is getting into the habit of looking to the continent for emerging designers. The same is true of the art world.
