Africa Rising

Sunday Read

Publication House Gestalten just released Africa Rising: Fashion, Design and Lifestyle from Africa. As hinted by the title, the highly colorful book gives a contemporary perspective onto new up-and-coming African artists working in the different fields of fashion, architectures, art, design and food.

Although there is no such thing as an ‘African design’ given the fact that each of the 54 African nations reflect on a different cultural background and identity, Africa Rising gives an overview on the artists who are shaping the African artistic scene. The book is composed around fields such as design, architecture, fashion and art. For each of these fields the main representative actors are presented through their works. Hamed Ouattara and his furniture made out of disregarded oil barrels and Studio Propolis, a design studio working on buildings and chairs equally and who just designed an extraordinary cathedral in Kenyan are some of designers presented. For the architecture section, the community-oriented buildings or Francis Kéré are explained along the ones of Nlé, whose architecture responds to the current issues of globalization and climate change. South African artist Marco Cianfanelli and his sculptures made out of steel beams forming fragmented images are explained though their historic ground, so are the photographs of Pieter Hugo who manifests through his work the symbolism of everyday African realities.

On more than 300 pages, Africa Rising depicts a colorful, creative and avant-gardist African scene through pictures mainly that give way to the lector’s creativity.