The director of the Museum of African Design takes us on a tour of his apartment on the periphery of the pulsating main street of Maboneng. Sometimes it takes an American in Africa to show us that size is not everything.

The most striking thing about Aaron Kohn’s bachelor pad on the third floor of the Artisan Lofts in Maboneng is not that it’s right next door to a brothel or that the balcony catches the most indulgent rays of sun on mornings after a night of partying. It’s that the apartment is, well, so tiny. 

At only 30 square metres – “as well as a 10 square-metre balcony,” he emphasises – Aaron has to make the space work for his needs. We settle on the short-short chairs on said balcony and enjoy the sunlight, as a low-hanging lamp sways in the breeze. “I know they’re tiny chairs,” he laughs, “that’s kind of the theme of the apartment if you haven’t noticed.”

“This,” he gestures to his bedroom, “looks massive to me. Especially after living in New York. It’s, like, three times the size of a New York apartment at, like, a fourth of the rent. Everyone has it hard in New York. You make a lot more money in New York but over there you have a shittier quality of life.”

The 23-year-old’s quality of life has improved considerably since he left his birthplace in Cleveland. Before he was a resident of Joburg’s hipster hub, Aaron was an African Studies student at Columbia University in New York. He spent a year as an exchange student at Wits University – “because I knew all the Americans had gone to UCT” – and co-founded the AfricanLookbook.com e-retailer where five-panel Babatunde caps priced as high as $40 are sold to Americans and Europeans who want some African flavour in their wardrobes. Even before that though, he did a year of high school in Gaborone, Botswana, and travelled through Namibia. It’s these experiences that are part of the reason he became “obsessed” with this continent. 

Now, he is the director of the new Museum of African Design (MOAD), a stone’s throw from his apartment. MOAD is a project of developer Jonathan Liebmann, who was named one of Forbes magazine’s 30 Most Promising Entrepreneurs in Africa. Since 2006, Jonathan’s company, Propertuity, has rejuvenated the entire Maboneng Precinct, transforming it from an industrial neighbourhood to a creative one – complete with an independent cinema, restaurants and a Sunday market. 

The initial plan was to give AfricanLookbook.com the pop-up shop treatment inside MOAD, but through “a combination of impulsive emails from me, and them giving me a chance,” he was tasked with being the director of the museum. In November last year the museum, which describes itself as “a permanent cultural laboratory”, officially opened with an exhibition called Native Nostalgia, curated by Aaron and inspired by a book of the same title by journalist Jacob Dlamini. 

Images from the exhibition are still stuck to Aaron’s kitchen wall. They are swallowed by a blood-red colour scheme. A cow-skin from Amatuli lies on the cold floor. “When I first lived in Africa it was in Gaborone, a place that relies on cattle for everything,” Aaron explains. “I like the Nguni rug because it is one of few I’ve seen with both black and brown tones. There’s usually only one or the other.”

Looking around the man cave, past the clothes hung on a rail, bottles of spirits in varying degrees of emptiness line the top of his fridge; there is coffee in a white cup with Johannesburg’s skyline circling it. We drink water out of a jug that uses the Marlboro cigarette brand motif to announce Joburg Tap Water. An alphabet shoe rack “has notebooks, tools, remotes for all the different gadgets in the place, power cords… With so little space, it becomes a fun storage solution”.

Aaron explains that he doesn’t have any keepsakes or souvenirs from around the world in his apartment – where would he put them all? But he’s happy to source everything locally. It’s clear: Aaron hearts Africa.

“My attitude is I’m happy here. I can be here a lot of the time and never have to step into a mall,” he smiles broadly. “And besides, everyone knows that design and art are going to reshape this city and country.” 

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How did you get involved in MOAD?
When I was a visiting student at Wits, I ended up spending time in Maboneng and I came across the project. African Lookbook was meant to play a role in the museum, with the possibility of a shop in the building, but that turned into something much bigger. 

What is your vision for MOAD?
The vision is for it to be a space that explores the rest of the continent, through design and innovation. There are going to be a lot of unique concepts, new to Joburg and also new to museums – a cocktail bar, an event space and live concerts, for instance. 

What do you think of the world’s perception of Africa and South Africa?
I still get people asking me if the objects they collected on safari could be displayed in the museum! So it’s going to be fun to showcase cutting-edge African designers. 

Southern Guild’s efforts are really fantastic, don’t you think?
Yes! Opening with Southern Guild was successful because of how exciting the content is. South Africans still need more exposure to local design – it’s a shame that so much design is imported from overseas when there are amazing local studios. 

• moadjhb.com
• southernguild.co.za
• africanlookbook.com

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Here at VISI we are always excited for excellent new local design, especially by fresh new talent. For instance, we love Bloemfontein-born Atang Tshikare’s geometric architectural line drawings etched onto the wooden tables made by Cameron Barnes Furniture. Better known as a graphic designer, Givan Lötz also explores the optical limits of geometry with his unusual mirrors, not to mention Meyer von Wielligh’s naturally elegant Leaf sideboard.

Speaking of limits, two artists stood out for us as having really pushed their materials. Cameron Platter continued to subvert the ordinary with incendiary new meaning with his plastic garden chair that is in fact wood. Meanwhile, getting somewhat controversial, Michael MacGarry presented chopsticks made out of human bone. Interestingly, because of the human material, the work can’t be sold and we can’t help wondering what it’s fate may be!

A perennial VISI favourite, Dokter and Misses (whose design of Wyatt Hairdressing is featured in VISI 68 SPRINGLOADED) show off just why their refined formalist-with-an-African-twist designs are amassing an international cult following. Their collaboration with Dawn Dludlu in particular has us gaga. In fact, isn’t it awesome the frontiers that craft is being taken to – have a look at Marisa Fick-Jordan’s striking wirework.

One of the highlights of the Southern Guild show is always seeing artists and designers punch out of their comfort zone. Take artist Conrad Botes who takes his comic-book style and produces real three-dimensional functional furniture – we’re sure that a Botes headboard and bedside tables would enhance our dreams at night.

Photographer David Ross also showed what he’s learnt about design from behind the camera all these years with his range of mobiles (as seen in VISI 68 SPRINGLOADED). Oh and, also previewed in VISI 68 SPRINGLOADED, are Philippe Bousquet’s delightful scrap metal sculptures that, with his dogs and robots, bring retro-futurist fun and animation to the otherwise predictable genre of lighting.

One of our favourite must-have pieces though is designer and sculptor Xandre Kriel’s Samoosa table. Besides its metallic beauty, that a designer found inspiration in the rather ordinary samosa for something so beautiful blows our collective minds, making us want to open our wallets and get drastic with the plastic. But then, if we’re going to bring out the plastic there’s also Pierre Cronje’s wonderful Puzzle Bench, not to mention the exquisite collaboration between artist John Murray and carpet manufacturer Paco Pakdoust – although perhaps the latter is almost too good to walk on!

Of course you can see all of this for yourself by visiting the museum until Sunday 3 November. Presented in partnership with steel giant Arcelor Mittal SA and featuring over 200 works by 100 artists and designers, this is Southern Guild’s most extensive exhibition since being founding in 2008 – incredible considering how busy they’ve been promoting SA design overseas this year (read more here).

www.moadjhb.com, www.southernguild.co.za

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Turning the notion of a sausage factory on its celluloid head, an exciting creative project inspired by filmmaker Michel Gondry is currently churning out movies in downtown Johannesburg. Everyone is invited to make a movie until 25 October. We caught some hilarious snaps.

The concept is based on Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind in which two buffoons wipe out the content of an entire video store and go about rectifying the problem by recreating Hollywood blockbusters using whatever cheap means they can find. Gondry is the wacky Frenchman who brought us Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The Home Movie Factory is set in a giant playground for the imagination. Based at an old panel beater that has been transformed into an Afrocentric series of movie sets, there are a couple of Ford Cortinas, a battered taxi, a barbershop, bedroom, coffee shop, lounge etc, all of which can be adapted to the particular needs of participants.

The grist is the imagination, fun, creativity, spontaneity and dynamics of the people involved. The end product is purely incidental and there is no motivation to make a movie with an audience in mind. Even though it has already taken place at temporary locations in Rio de Janiero, New York, Rotterdam and Moscow, participants are discouraged from even publishing their movies on social media sites such as YouTube.

For starters, budding filmmakers are taken into a meeting room, where a particular workshop process (designed by Gondry) is followed. The genre, a rough script and who-does-what is decided before heading to wardrobe, and then onto the sets where the real fun begins.

The entire movie is shot in camera so there’s no going back for retakes and there isn’t enough time to overthink things. Once it’s all over, the movie is screened at the Bioscope Independent Cinema a couple of blocks away.

Although you can choose to make the movie with your buddies, part of the fun is being teamed up with strangers and seeing what transpires. With luck, you’ll have a whole cast of new friends by the end of the three-hour process. 

Most importantly, it’s free and anybody over the age of six is encouraged to make a movie. Although drop-ins are welcome, the organisers recommend that you rather book a slot to ensure a place.

The Home Movie Factory was brought to Johannesburg by the Bioscope Independent Cinema in partnership with the National Film and Video Foundation, as part of the France-South Africa Seasons 2012 & 2013. 

Open 9am to 6pm Tuesday to Sunday at the Museum of African Design, 281 Commissioner Street, and the Bioscope, 286 Fox Street, Johannesburg. More info and bookings: www.thebioscope.com/thehomemoviefactory.

 

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