Renaissance of African Design and Global Competing Realities
Why ‘Designed-in-Africa’ is competing with history.
A quick Google search into products that are made in Africa will produce a dizzying assortment of various natural agricultural products that has become indispensable to foreign consumers. You will be presented with pictures of Shea butter products, coffee, leather, palm oil and many other products that befits the Western image of Africa as a continent that is predominantly dependent on the exploitation of its natural gifts. While this is quiet true, this has resulted in a mono-dimensional view of Africa’s industrial complex as traditionally dependent on the West for finished products. The intellect of Africans and their innovative capabilities are being eroded by this dominant ideology and it becomes considerably difficult for the average African to secure an environment that is friendly to his/her gifts and non-comformist ideas.
Screenshot of Google Search Result for ‘Products Made in Africa
However, to simply assume that the only reason Africa is still overwhelmingly consumerist is due to the lack of a conducive environment for an industrial revolution might be interpreted as naivety. There is also the task of upending an import culture ingrained in the continent even before colonization. This import culture is what attracted the old slave traders to exchange people in their hundreds for mirrors, gunpowder and other fascinating goods made in 17th century Europe. It is this import culture that the West built their industrial revolution on in the 1700s, eventually feigning humanism and importing palm oil, cotton and others out of Africa in place of people. In fact, it is this import culture that the new imperialism is built upon; this penchant to lean towards relegating Africans to predominant producers of raw goods and consumers of manufactured ones.
Unfortunately, this attitude also became easily prevalent in the thoughts of African designers in the past century. A sheer abandonment of indigenous designs in architecture, fashion, communication, and much more became a recurrent theme of the mid 20th and early 21st century Africa. Suddenly, African monuments were being contracted to foreign designers while the pyramids still stand in Egypt, and the African culture is became increasingly and alarmingly eroded by western ideologies in designs. Africans began to take the backseat when solutions to their own problems are being discussed. This is when it became apparent that ‘Designed-in-Africa’ is not only competing with foreign products, it also is competing with ideologies, with experiences; with its own history.
EFFORTS; The Zaria Rebels and others…
Hinged on the palpable euphoria of post-independence nationalism in late 1950s Nigeria, was an attempt by radical nationalist to ensure a considerable overthrow of Western ideals ingrained into the African subconscious. This radicalism found a representation in the arts when a group of undergraduates of the Fine Art Department of the then Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology (now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria) formed the Zaria Art Society in 1958. Appalled by the perversion of foreign influence in African Art and design, the Zaria Rebels, led by Uche Okeke conceived and advocated the concept of ‘Natural Synthesis’. Their ideology presupposes that amidst the inculcation of westernized technology and methods is a consequent erasure of indigenous ideas and local means and style. The members of the group thereby chose to respond to this by rejecting the methods of teaching Art in the university and resorted to creating their own designs clearly enunciating the diverse cultures of Africa. This ‘rebellion’ is obvious in the prints of Bruce Onobrakpeya and in the Architecture of Demas Nwoko.
The Dominican Chapel by Demas Nwoko
This natural synthesis is now prevalent in contemporary African Design. Senegalese designer, Ousmane M’baye, recycles scrap metals salvaged from the landfills of Dakar and makes them into unique furniture pieces; Birsel+Seck’s “The Taboo” collection uses recycled plastics to make functional West-African inspired tables. Also Burkina-Faso’s Hamed Ouattara makes his furniture from scrap metals sourced from old oil barrels. This suggests the dawn of an innovative era that looks to significantly abandon the western means and method of design for local innovation and indigenous ideas.
A Renaissance?
‘My goal is to provide a key point in a continent which suffers from imports and all kinds of imitation furniture, especially of poor quality and which does not reflect our culture. As inspiration from traditional furniture carved by our artisans is disappearing, my work makes a difference and is a modern African design luxury.’
-Hamed Ouattara
Hamed Ouattara makes his furniture from scrap metals sourced from old oil barrels
The current clime in Africa offers a chance for a Design renaissance as never before. However, there still are challenges it needs to overcome. This renaissance requires an abandonment of the ideal of exoticism when it comes to the way African Design is viewed. While headways has been made in establishing products and innovations from Africa as viable, there is still the attitude of considering such design as simply ‘exotic’ and artisanal by the Western world. The usability and originality of these designs are vital in dispelling this attitude. Exhibitions and installations are great at promoting design works and the African Design culture but to attain a solid incursion into foreign markets, there has to be a local acceptance and usage of homegrown products and ideas. To attain this, it is important to instill a high degree of originality in the designs emerging from Africa.
In textile, in communication, in fashion, in innovations, products, and solutions, there are local sources of inspiration that will enable African designers do away with the incessant and unnecessary inculcation of Western ideals into African Design. While inspiration can be taken from foreign sources and useful technological knowledge can be inculcated to enhance mass production, this should not be allowed to result in a watering down of the sources and identity of such design. The common method of attempting to present foreign products with a local façade to satisfy the ‘foreign taste’ of clients will only result in further proliferation of foreign products and innovations into the African Design market.
It is often said that ‘’we know better where we go when we know when we come from’’,therefore, there has to be a thorough appreciation of the history of African Design to attain originality and sustain its rebirth. Efforts made to ensure the reflection of the aesthetic and methods of African Design should be promoted, lauded and accepted. Africans needs to stop the mere exhibition of products designed in Africa and start using them. While crediting the origin of Graphics Design to Guternberg’s printing process, Ghana’s Adinkra symbols and the pictorial writing of Ndebele must not be so hastily forgotten or overlooked. It is by exploring this history and drawing inspiration from them that African Design can remain relevant and retain its authenticity.
