From a contemporary coffee shop in Kuwait designed by nendo and local artists representing in NYC to a 3D-printed printmaking press and a colourful customisable stool, these are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 282.

Arabica Coffee Shop by nendo

Japanese design studio nendo is behind the interior design of the Arabica coffee shop in Kuwait. The studio made use of brass and concrete to accentuate the crisp 190 m² space. “The division of the store into four vertical layers allows for multiple lines of sight for both the customers and staff,” says the team at nendo, who believe the design will encourage interaction between customers.

Image credit: Takumi Ota via nendo.jp

Zizipho Poswa and Justine Mahoney at NYCxDESIGN 2019

South African artists Zizipho Poswa and Justine Mahoney are two of 19 female artists whose innovative work is featured as part of the Deeper than Text exhibition at the 1stdibs Gallery. 1stdibs, a global marketplace for luxury design and the Female Design Council have teamed up on this exciting showcase, which is currently on show until the end of May at NYCxDESIGN 2019 in New York City.

Zizipho Poswa

Justine Mahoney

Image credits: Pernille Loof (NYCxDESIGN 2019) / Hayden Phipps (Zizipho Poswa), courtesy of Southern Guild

M/Matching Colorstool

Fashion design house Miu Miu has collaborated with creative agency M / M on a customisable limited-edition stool. Featuring large match sticks in 12 different colours, users can personalise the stool’s surface as they wish. Fun!

Images via designboom.com

Open Press Project’s 3D-printed Printmaking Press

Ever dreamed of making your own prints? This little 3D-printed printing press is a first of its kind, allowing you to explore the art of etching, engraving, drypoint and relief printing for yourself. Not only is it portable and lightweight, it fits into the palm of your hand. The press is the brainchild of the Open Press Project, which reached its Kickstarter goal to get creating with the help of 1 485 backers this month.

Images via Kickstarter

The BIBO Express

The BIBO Express is an energy-efficient wall-mounted appliance for boiling water. With a non-drip function (meaning you can place it anywhere), the Express only boils water when you need it to, ensuring you’re not wasting water or electricity. It’s available in three colours – black, blush and silver.

Images via bibo.co.za

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It’s been a year since Justine Mahoney’s solo show, Tainted, was exhibited in Johannesburg, so VISI caught up with the thought-provoking sculptor, known for powerfully capturing a darker element behind a playful façade, to find out how she developed her iconic style, who she’s following on Instagram, and what she’s working on now.

Justine Mahoney shot for Southern Guild by Mark Cameron.

How did you develop your style?

I wouldn’t say that I have a style. My process deals with forming digital collages from my library of imagery. I use intuition to bring images together – they speak to me to tell me what they need. From here, I go directly to clay to build using the collages as source material. Then my pieces are cast in bronze.

How much has the South African context influenced your work?  

My work is fundamentally based on the experience of growing up in this country.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? 

I couldn’t imagine living anywhere other than SA.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on a schoolgirl with super powers.

What, or who, inspires you? 

At the moment, teenagers.

Describe where you create your pieces? 

My studio is the storage space for ideas that are coming into being. I keep all my collections here, from obscure Japanese superheroes to comic books and plastic toys.

What time of day do you prefer to work? 

Mornings and night time.

If you could collaborate with a South African artist who would it be?

Yolandi Visser would be cool, but more truthfully, Wim Botha.

What are you reading at the moment? 

I’m listening to the audiobook of Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft.

If you weren’t an artist, what would you be? 

A witch or an astronaut.

Do you have a career highlight?

Working with Southern Guild.

Where was the last place you travelled and what did you buy? 

I travelled to New York City. I didn’t need to buy much; I just experienced it. I did find a brilliant sculpture tool store recommended by [artist] Conrad Botes.

What is your favourite room in your home?

I love my entire home.

What is the last piece of design or art you purchased? 

The comic Hellboy by Mike Mignola.

Are you a summer or winter person? 

Both.

Are you on Instagram? If yes, who should we all be following?

Yes (@justine.mahoney). Follow @playforever.

What’s next for you?

I’m busy working on my next show with Southern Guild.

Check out Justine’s recently relaunched site, designed by Jana + Koos, and stay up to date with Southern Guild on Instagram for news of Justine’s exhibition in early 2019.

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Southern Guild will be taking a curated selection of South African design to Design Miami 2017, taking place from 6 – 10 December.

The gallery will be taking the work of Madoda Fani, Justine Mahoney, Adam Birch, Paco Pakdoust, Andile Dyalvane, Trevor Potter, Charles Haupt, David Krynauw, Otto du Plessis, Dokter and Misses, Jan Bekker, Porky Hefer, Meyer von Wielligh, Jesse Ede and John Vogel.

In this Q&A with Trevyn McGowan, co-founder of The GUILD Group, she talks to us about the feverish international interest in local art and design and what it means to be at Design Miami.

How do you think the voice of the African continent is currently being received and perceived in the international design world?

In the 15 years that we have been working with African design in a global context, I have been aware that the focus on Africa has steadily intensified. Interest in our product and inspiration drawn from our aesthetic, stories and cultures appear across many industries and an African sensibility permeates countless trends. Our exports of design pieces has also grown steadily with a significant number of new private and commercial clients each year. I think that the opening of Zeitz MOCAA, and the establishment of the Silo District by the V&A Waterfront, is one of the most important developments in bringing international attention to the continent.

In your opinion, why is the work of artist-designers and their free expression so important to the authenticity of creativity in the art and design industries?

Designers have to be groundbreaking, they have to have a unique viewpoint and a distinct voice and they have to have their own, specific narrative. As Africans, we can’t emulate design from other parts of the world, it isn’t at all interesting. We have such a unique and authentic starting point that this is what we need to draw on. One of our biggest focuses as curators is encouraging designers to forge their own paths, to study what the rest of the world is producing, and in doing so ensure that their perspective is fresh.

Since the founding of Southern Guild in 2008 how far would you say you and Julian are in accomplishing the vision you set out achieve?

No matter how much ground you cover there is always so much more to achieve, but I can say we are immensely proud of how far our industry has come. The quality of the production, the vision of the work and the confidence of both our established design heroes and younger, emerging stars is incredibly gratifying. We provided a platform and a framework and the designers rose magnificently to the challenge and opportunity. You only have to look at how far the work has come in the 10 years since we started and how our customer base is now split 50/50 local and international as South Africans begin to understand the category and the value of investment purchasing. We still have a huge amount that we want to do and you have to keep pushing in new directions. The plans for next year include participating at several new fairs, gallery partnership projects and developing new designers from different disciplines. We are also so happy in our new GUILD gallery space, which allows for so many more projects than before.

Do any of the pieces in the curated collection that you’re taking to Design Miami 2017 tell a particular story that resonates with you personally?

We are very connected with all of the work for Miami and of course finishing the year with what, for us, is the best fair in the world gives us a great opportunity to select the most important work from the year. A highlight is always what Porky Hefer produces – this year it is a sublime leather Toucan hanging seat (a collaborative piece with Woodheads) – we have sold his pieces to some of the most important collectors around the world from the fair, including the National Gallery of Victoria, a leading design museum. We are also extremely excited about showing seven of Andile Dyalvane’s works from his recent solo at GUILD Silo, Indladla. Andile has a very strong collector base in the US, including a top gallery we collaborate with, Friedman Benda. Meyer von Wielligh has produced an extraordinary large-scale, carved timber table and sideboard inspired by lightning strikes. In all, we will show over 30 pieces in our biggest selection to date.

5. What do you hope to take away from the Design Miami 2017 experience and bring back to SA and Southern Guild specifically?

Miami, during the art and design fairs, is the absolute highlight of our year. The city is so stimulating over this time with dozens of art fairs, performances, pop-ups and events, that you can’t look in any direction without being assaulted with stimulation and inspiration. We connect with our colleagues in the industry, including other global galleries, designers we have developed close friendships with [sic] like the Haas Brothers and Misha Khan, and we work with our partner galleries like R and Company on our collaborations for the coming year.

We learn so much as we spend seven days viewing the most important design in the world from the other 33 galleries that participate. Most importantly, we re-establish our own confidence in our work and our path, as the sales at the fair for South African design are always so strong. Starting every day in a warm turquoise sea and finishing it at a super hot party doesn’t hurt either.

For more information about GUILD, visit theguildgroup.co.za.

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Sculptor Justine Mahoney’s Tainted exhibition opens on 14 October 2016 at Southern Guild Gallery in Cape Town’s Woodstock.

The exhibition consists of a series of 10 bronze sculptures, each with a corresponding collage.

Focusing on the unsettling idea of schizophrenia and inner demons, her work in Tainted studies the contrast between the facades of humans, the happier and light side, with a dark uneasiness beneath the surface. “The experience of growing up in South Africa during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s was extremely schizophrenic and it is from this period that I gather elements of inspiration,” she explains. “I have a large collection of imagery from those decades which mimic my memories, and which I turn into portraits that reflect this multifariousness. From these hack-and-bash collages, seemingly teenage in nature, I use clay to re-form the past and recall fears, dreams, nightmares and aspirations.”

Justine also explores themes such as imagination, fantasy and child-like wonder, translated from her previous exhibition Innocence through to this new instalment.

“As Justine’s confidence as an artist grows, her subject matter becomes more enticing and thought-provoking, reflecting South African culture in a dark mirror,” explains Southern Guild co-director Julian McGowan. “This exhibition takes you to a familiar but unsettling place – it is Malice in Wonderland.”

Tainted will run from 14 October to 18 November 2016 at the Southern Guild Gallery in Cape Town. The gallery is located at 10 Lewin Street, Woodstock and is open Monday to Friday from 10am – 5pm.

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Work by some of our best artists and designers has found a new home: the Southern Guild Gallery in Woodstock.

No one who knew the Cape Town suburb of Woodstock a decade ago would deny the changes that have taken place in the area in the 10 years since. Streets in which businesses feared to trade have turned into hubs of creative activity, attracting a wide range of retailers, restaurants, designers, artists and art galleries.

During this decade, husband-and-wife team Julian and Trevyn McGowan built a business that has grown to be the authority on local original design. In November 2014, their business opened its first permanent home, the Southern Guild Gallery, in Lewin Street, Woodstock.

“We moved to Cape Town after living in Wilderness for 11 years,” says Trevyn. “We were looking for an office when Julian spotted this space. All that was here was a warehouse with cracked concrete. We thought, okay, maybe we can put the office in; then one thing led to another and, just like that, we were opening a permanent gallery. It’s something we’ve talked about for ages, obviously, but we always thought it would be in Joburg.”

For the gallery opening, the McGowans hosted Home-coming, an exhibition of limited-edition works by top designers and artists. At the gallery’s front window, guests were greeted by a tableau of Justine Mahoney sculptures. A little further in, across from a Koop Design Linen-fold table, David Krynauw’s Haywire black ash chandelier lit up artist Michael MacGarry’s human bone chopsticks (Amicus Curiae). All around, design and art lived in harmony.

Looking at the works in the gallery’s 280 m² space with the white walls and high ceilings, it’s easy to forget what it looked like just a few months before. In fact, one might even forget that South African design lacked representation at the world’s top design fairs before Trevyn and Julian started Southern Guild.

“I’m from Johannesburg originally,” says Trevyn, “and I went to live in London in the early ’80s. I spent 22 years there, and that’s where Julian and I met. I’d started a design consultancy, and it was through buying South African products for clients that I saw the need for people internationally to have access to South African work.”

It was after they moved back to South Africa in 2003 that the pair founded their first company, Source, which connected South African suppliers to international clients, including The Conran Shop. “The person who worked with me at The Conran Shop introduced me to American retailer Anthropologie, and within five years we were supplying them, Restoration Hardware, Bergdorf Goodman, Jamie Oliver and others. It really exploded.

“We soon had a database of about 500 suppliers, and it was through working at that retail commercial level that we realised a platform was needed for limited-edition collectible design. So, in 2008, we launched Southern Guild for designers who are producing pieces too big, too expensive or too limited to fit into a retail kind of model .”

Southern Guild now shows South African design at five of the most important design fairs around the world. Last year, the pair also launched GUILD, Africa’s first international design fair in Cape Town, to which they invited some of the world’s best collectible-design galleries. February 2015 will see them host it for the second time, where together with the designers they will continue to write the story of South African design.

“We’re interested in the idea of openness and sharing; through sharing far richer things come,” says Trevyn. “We view what we do as collaboration – with our designers and with the retailers we work with. Collaboration is about ultimate openness and allowing yourself to be challenged.”

Find out how you can book your spot at the VISI Great Spaces tour of this fantastic space.

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