Guild Design Fair is here

With names like Nacho Carbonell, Rossana Orlandi, Haas Brothers and Wendle Castle headlining, Africa’s first international design fair is kicking off with a grande bang! Called Guild, it takes place in Cape Town from Friday 28 February to Sunday 9 March.

The fair is the brainchild of Trevyn and Julian McGowan – renowned for their work on the Southern Guild exhibitions of collectible South African design, as well as putting local design in big international retailers such as Anthopologie and the Conran Shops through their company Source SA. Trevyn also guides the Design Network Africa initiative that brings together leading designers from around the continent.

In celebrating Cape Town as World Design Capital 2014, instead of taking South African and African design to the world, as they have been doing since 2008, Guild brings the world to South Africa. To Cape Town, in specific, thanks to a partnership with Arcelor Mittal South Africa, sponsorship from Absa Private Banking and association with the V&A Waterfront and WDC2014. 

The fair’s featured designer is Eindhoven-based Nacho Carbonell, named Designer of the Future by Design Miami in 2009. He is known for his distinctive design-art pieces featuring organic forms and animated surfaces that challenge conventional perceptions of design. Sponsored by BMW, Nacho will show his Playground Closes At Dusk interactive exhibition based on the five senses.

Nacho’s gallerist, Rossana Orlandi, often referred to as the fairy godmother of design for her trailblazing work with emerging designers, will also be presenting an exhibition  of avant garde European design. Provocative São Paulo-based gallery, Coletivo Amor de Madre will do the same for South America.

From New York, the R20th Century gallery present a compelling narrative about the history and future of US design since 1960, through the work of Wendell Castle, Jeff Zimmerman, David Wiseman, The Haas Brothers and Thaddeus Wolfe.

The Agents of the 3D Revolution will show how the most innovative international 3D print designers and artists are shaping new technology to serve their creative needs. In contrast, the V&A Museum of London will present contemporary British design and “making”. This will also entail the launch of the Makers Library Network with Daniel Charney thanks to a commission from the British Council’s ConnectZA programme.

With all these international luminaries heading south, what will we show them? The Design Origins Africa South exhibition by the Origins Centre in Joburg will challenge visitors to question ideas of “advancement” and “function” by displaying objects that attest to human ingenuity from the deep past, from the very first objects produced by man 110 000 years ago, through to modern times.

Puppets from the Handspring Puppet Company’s acclaimed War Horse production, the Design Network Africa exhibition that showed at London Design Week last year, and a selection of the best Southern Guild designs over the year will complete our country and continent’s representation at the fair.

More than just a fair for beautiful objects, Guild represents the coming together of dedicated, focused curators, designers and institutions who are striving to preserve and provoke unique, groundbreaking design. The exhibition will be complemented by public and professional seminars, workshops and walkabouts.

“Some of the Guild participants are commercial galleries, some are organisations, some are institutions. What they share is a desire to articulate and shape our understanding of the importance of this category of design driven by heart, skill and vision – the most human forms of expression,” explains Trevyn.

“When designers are deeply involved in the process of what they make – hands on, immersed – a different kind of work emerges, the distance between what is rapidly made, mass-produced or machine-led and what is a result of process, intimacy and narrative, becomes greater. Handmade pieces are what really contain meaning for society and for the people who own them.”

Guild, The Lookout, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, guilddesignfair.com

Read VISI’s in-depth feature on the world trend of “collectible design” and the Guild exhibition in the WILD DESIGN issue, now on shelves.