Design Indaba, in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, has launched an online project called ‘Colours of Africa’.
As countries present their own colours rather than one, which could represent unity in the continent, Google stated that having colours from each showcases Africa’s diversity rather than division as purported.
Colours of Africa is an online project designed by Design Indaba in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. The project brings 60 specially curated artworks produced by over 60 unique African creatives chosen by Design Indaba online. It showcases them, with each invited to contribute a work that captures the colour and character of their home country.
Almost every creative discipline is represented in the project, from architecture, illustration, painting, and ceramics to writing, engineering, performing arts, and visual communications. Their work has been transformed into images, videos, texts, and illustrations.
Among the 60 artists are Algerian photographer Ramzy Bensaadi, Eritrean fashion designer Bisrat Negassi, Congolese filmmaker Archange Kiyindou “Yamakasi,” and Sierra Leonean visual artist Ngadi Smart.
Design Indaba worked with former Design Indaba conference speaker Noel Pretorius and his creative partner Elin Sjöberg to bring the project to life. She worked with Google Arts & Culture Lab to develop the digital exhibition’s design concept and interface. The exhibition includes a kaleidoscopic navigation tool that can be used to randomly explore the art, providing the visitor with a one-of-a-kind experience while allowing the art to shine.
Aside from the Colours of Africa platform, the initiative will launch over 4000 images, videos, and 20 carefully curated exhibits from Design Indaba’s extensive archive. Award-winning initiatives such as Sheltersuit, Arch for Arch, and Emerging Creatives will be extensively profiled online for the first time.
New works by some of the most important creatives working on the continent and abroad will also be displayed. These include Fozia Ismail (featured creative on Serpentine Gallery’s Creative Exchange programme), Mayada Adil El Sayed (represented Sudanese women at the Generation Equality Forum) and Lady Skollie (winner of 10th FNB art prize).
Design Indaba, which celebrated its 25th year in 2020, draws top thinkers and guests from across the globe. Acknowledged as the world’s best design conference, it continues to be a leader in foregrounding African creativity, making it the logical ‘home’ for this project.
Selected by Design Indaba’s founder Ravi Naidoo, the creatives will showcase the best of African craft, product, industrial design, fashion, film, animation, graphics, food, music, jewellery and architecture.
Naidoo said Africa is known for its bold, unapologetic use of colour. Each country, city and community is identifiable by its unique palette. “As Africans, we can tell powerful stories through colour. This project tells a continent’s story through the universally accessible lens.”
“Nothing like this exists to date, so we’re very excited to break new ground. This is an important artistic catalogue, the first of its kind to plot the expanse of African artistry on Google Arts and Culture. We salute Google for taking this important step to provide the world with a resource like this – not everyone can afford to travel here, or access physical art fairs and museums to view this kind of work,” continues Naidoo.
The first artistic undertaking of this scale, the project will allow viewers to discover stories of Africa as told by the African creative community. The artworks will be showcased online. Users are invited to spin the kaleidoscope to explore the works to take users on a journey through Africa, inviting them to view each country through the eyes of a local artist.
Managing Director at Google, Nitin Gajria, said Google has always been acutely aware and in full support of the immense creative melting pot that exists on the continent. “Collaborating with Design Indaba on this project allows us to bring this support to fruition. By empowering and amplifying African voices to tell the unique stories of their cultures through their work and creativity, we hope to provide much-needed exposure, cultivate a newfound curiosity, and window into the vast beauty that exists on the continent.”
“We look forward to giving viewers a ticket to experiencing a whole new world that is outside their everyday surroundings and creative knowledge. This project answers the vital call for all to notice and embraces African art in all its wonder.”
As part of the project launch, Design Indaba commissioned Nigerian multi-talented creative and accomplished professional artist, Chief Nike Monica Okundaye to capture her country’s unique spirit in a colour that represents home to her. She created an original painting titled ‘The Female Drummer/Àyánbìnrin’.
Colour: Royal Blue
Country: Nigeria
Artwork Rationale:
The colour blue in Nigerian indigenous cultures is the colour of love. Before a king ascends the throne, he often wears royal indigo blue. In Yorùbá, this is called ẹtù. In northern Nigeria, the colour is also used for the chief or the king. Same in eastern Nigeria. In the north, they sometimes even pound the blue into the turban when they marry a new wife. The whole face is sometimes blue to show love to the new bride. During their Durba, they sometimes wear the shining blue colour in the turbans to show love to the people at the festival.
Founder and Managing Director of Nike Center for Art and Culture, Nike Okundaye said: “I used blue for this painting titled ‘The Female Drummer/Àyánbìnrin’ to illustrate both the love you see here between the drummer and her lover and the love desperately needed in the time of the coronavirus lockdown. In Yorùbá societies, the talking drummer is usually at the front of the palace, sending messages to the king through the medium of the drum messages that the visitor themselves might not understand. The unique thing about this painting, done during the lockdown, is the use of a female drummer instead of the typical male ones seen in traditional Yorùbá art. My work involves female empowerment. I have trained disadvantaged women, widows, and young women for many years on fabric art so I am always happy to put women at the forefront of my artistic philosophy.”
