Forget what you think you know about African design, architecture, technology, art, music, culture and politics – the Afrofuture collaboration at the Milan Furniture Fair is about to shatter all assumptions about the continent’s new wave of creativity
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| The multi talented Jenna Bass's SA sci-fi 'zine |
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| Curated by London-based writer and critic Beatrice Galilee, who last year organised an exhibition about hacking in the same location, Afrofuture explores the past, present and future of design, architecture, art, music and politics across the continent |
Robotic mash-ups. A live newsroom reporting on China’s growing
influence on Africa. Bespoke Ghanaian fantasy coffins. African sci-fi.
Quirky bio-design. Congolese music performed on mobile phones…
The weird
and wonderful of futuristic African creativity centre stage
at Italian department store La Rinascente’s flagship retail space in the
Milan CBD where the continent’s most daring technologists, design
studios, writers, illustrators, musicians and photographers relayed
the African experience from their point of view
According to curator Beatrice Galilee “Afrofuture is an idea-fuelled
showcase of exhibitions, workshops, talks and debates to explore the
past, present and future of design on the world’s second-largest
continent”
“As the design world expands far beyond aesthetics to also
incorporate networks, strategies and unexpected tactics, Africa becomes
an urgent critical voice in the global conversation. In Afrofuture we
imagine the African Union as the world’s most powerful economic zone, we
imagine DIY space travel, we imagine biomorphic militarised KwaZulu
vervet monkeys. We present Chinafrica state TV, futuristic instruments
and contemporary African pulp fiction,” she explains
The programme presented from 9 to 12 April featured different
daily events such as a workshop to design and build a model for a bridge
between Europe and Africa, while the shop windows acted as
multi-dimensional story portals
Illustrated with six different stories
from African pulp-fiction masters, including South Africa’s very own Jungle Jim
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