NEWAFRICA Exhibition Press Release (July 07)

NEWAFRICA

Hotspots south of the Sahara
From 17 August – 20 September 2007 Rundetaarn (the Round Tower) will be opening its doors for the world’s first exhibition on cutting edge African design.

New African design is haute couture, streetwear, graphics, ceramics, furniture and industrial design - combining cutting edge design with traditional crafts and visions of building a new and better Africa.
Many African designers have a great social awareness, and their product development often takes place in collaboration with craftsmen from rural areas. Local women from the Limpopo area weave the seats of Haldene Martin’s famous café chairs, while the industrial design group XYZ is developing life-improvement products such as a hand-driven radios and condoms with built-in applicators.
The global community is just around the corner

Two products from the WITW Collection were selected for the exhibition.
“We would like to show the creativity and diversity found in the African design culture right now,” say architects Tina Midtgaard and Elisabeth Topsøe, the designers behind the exhibition.
”Africa is struggling with great social and economic problems, but at the same time completely new cultures and identities are gaining a foothold, and their leap out into the global community is just around the corner. This transition is creating new space for the African world of design. The fashion business, globally, already has its eye on many of Africa’s talented designers.”
A catalogue will be prepared for the exhibition documenting and discussing new design cultures in Africa.

Three themes
The exhibition has three themes: Cultural Strength and Identity, presenting African fashion and graphic design; sustainability and Empowerment, displaying African product and furniture design; and low-cost housing, improving living conditions through architectural design.
African fashion show
A number of fashion shows with haute couture and streetwear from countries south of the Sahara will be organized in connection with the exhibition.
On a world tour
The exhibition will show design from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. After the launch in Rundetaarn the exhibition will proceed on a world tour ending in South Africa in 2010 – the year South Africa will be hosting the FIFA World Cup.
INDEX 2007
NEWAFRICA will be shown in conjunction with INDEX Awards 2007, which awards prizes for designs from around the world. The project has been developed in collaboration with Network of African Designers and Professor Des Laubscher, Director of Greenside Design School and former president of Design South Africa.
The exhibition is supported by DCCD/CKU (Danish Centre for Culture and Development), Kunstfonden (The Danish Arts Foundation), Montana, Kvadrat, Erik Jørgensen, Manden med Cameraet, Fatboy, ManneQ og RIAS.

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