Totemism: Memphis Meets Africa, a design exhibition curated by Dutch trend forecaster Li Edelkoort, was presented in 2013 by Design Indaba as part of the Design Indaba Expo of South African design at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The show, Design Indaba notes, used the concept of totems and stacked objects to “highlight the power of merging, layering and expressing various cultures.” In doing so, the showcase unearthed similarities across the two cultures.
Edelkoort mixed South African design with sensibilities of the 1980s Memphis movement in Italy. She noted a kinship between Memphis’s taste for bold colors, neon, patterned laminates and animal materials with South African designers who use contemporary elements combined with traditional folklore and icons such as spears, zebra and wooden masks.
One of the elements was a Ceramics Kit from RR Studio, a South African pattern lab focusing on the conception of a New South African Aesthetic. The Studio was founded in 2013 by Renée Rossouw, a Cape Town-based architect and artist:
“I use New South African Aesthetic to describe designing for an African future, in which I attempt to make work, through research and processes, that is inspired by, and for South Africa – bold colours, graphic shapes and growing cities. My attempt is to create a visual identity in my work that is a hybrid of all our cultures.”
RR studio creates original, bold and geometric patterns which are applied to a variety of mediums, often working with various collaborators and product houses. Studio patterns are designed through the exploration of different creative processes, which is as important as the final outcome.
Ceramic Kit allowed participants to build with a limited but flexible group of elements, creating totems and Memphis-like structures.
Rossouw is a graphic-orientated, color-fixated architect-designer obsessed with comics, colour, patterns and everyday objects.
Her work explores 3D graphic dialogues between objects and she is fascinated by the relationship between the user and his or her interaction with it. Rossouw describes her design work as falling into the category of art-meets-design.
Having graduated with a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Cape Town in 2009, Rossouw went on to complete the RSP Master at the European Design Labs in Madrid under director Jaime Hayón in 2010.
Rossouw has collaborated with Vitra, DoshiLevien, Pedrita, StudioBec, Estudio Luis Urculo and Labland, Bosa Ceramics, Hayón Studio and Haldane Martin. Her work was exhibited at the 2006 Venice Biennale and at Design Indaba Expo in 2008 and 2011.
Above image: From Totemism: Memphis Meets Africa. Photograph by Riccardo Pugliese.
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From the Totemism: Memphis Meets Africa exhibition. Photographs by Riccardo Pugliese.
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