The future belongs to Africa, because it seems to have happened everywhere else already. The exhibition offers a new tale of Africa, an invitation to value the continent from a brand new perspective.
Many of the major African capitals are seeing the consolidation of a generation that, around culture and through creation and design, is defending its right to build itself in freedom, without foreign tutelage and contradicting the stereotypes projected from the West.
Making Africa exhibits the projects of artists and designers originating from and often working in Africa who are addressing a global audience and providing the world with a new perspective of their continent. They often work in various disciplines simultaneously and break with the conventional definitions of design, art, photography, architecture and film. The new media are playing a central role and initially they made this change of perspective possible. Often produced by collectives and within an urban context, the works showcased in Making Africa connect the digital revolution with analog existence.
They focus more on the process than the result. They interpret materials in a radically new way. They assume their responsibility with relation to society rather than with relation to the markets and make bold forecasts regarding the future. Dialogue between diverse artistic disciplines. Making Africa shows works from diverse creative areas: design of objects and furniture, the graphic arts, illustration, fashion, architecture, urban planning, art, crafts, film and photography, in addition to digital and analog focuses.
All of the works presented are underpinned by a quest to address questions of material culture and everyday aesthetics β in short, questions of design. The objects demonstrate how design in Africa is understood on a much more inclusive level than in Western societies and they are proof that this understanding can produce innovative new approaches.
