WORDS Cheri Morris
Southern Guild presents Inkundla at Design Miami 2022 – a collection of 16 handcrafted objects existing in the material plane but born of the spiritual one, featuring the likes of ceramicists Zizipho Poswa, Andile Dyalvane, and Madoda Fani; artists Nandipha Mnthambo, Porky Hefer, and Rich Mnisi; sculptor Stanislaw Trzebinski and design duo Dokter and Misses.
Inkundla derives from the Xhosa word for the entrance to a homestead’s cattle enclosure; it is a place of community, the sacred and mundane, where ideas and gripes are exchanged. The handmade objects – distinct in their materiality and form, bound by their exploration of spiritual themes and the intent of hand – visually and functionally narrate the everyday lifeworlds of objects. That is, things imbued with symbolism that elevate the everyday towards the divine.
Highlights include:
Ceramic and bronze sculptures, uBuhle boKhokho, by Zizipho Poswa that are colossal in scale and intricacy and draw inspiration from the way African women express and celebrate themselves through hair.
Andile Dyalvane’s three ceramic forms pay homage to the grounding power of nature and, specifically, the large nests of sociable weaver birds the artist spent time studying on recent travels to the plains of the Karoo desert and the Northern Cape of South Africa.
Dokter and Misses’ new hand-painted LALA Limo server brings geometric planes into conversation with an arresting energy. It is a design commemoration of the birth of the duo’s first child and speaks of tension and potential, science and nature, trauma and joy.
Rich Mnisi’s Nyoka (Snake) console and Vutlhari (Wisdom) chandelier command a tense sensuality in the booth and drew on his family history, African mythology and the duality of fear and beauty.
- The complete list of artists include:
- Adam Birch
- Andile Dyalvane
- Charles Haupt
- Cheick Diallo
- Chuma Maweni
- Conrad Hicks
- Dokter and Misses
- Galia Gluckman
- Justine Mahoney
- Madoda Fani
- Nandipha Mntambo
- NØDE
- Porky Hefer
- Rich Mnisi
- Rodney Band
- Zizipho Poswa
Design Miami will be held from 30 November to 4 December 2022. For more information, visit designmiami.com.
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