2011 – 2021 | iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations About Food)

“... the role of the designer is to create dialogue, that’s the only thing that works. The more people, the more we need to talk, to hear each other, to learn to argue with each other. The role of a project is sometimes to simply create a dialogue. It’s not the result, it’s what type of dialogue I managed to create around the project. I think the value of dialogue is rising compared to the value of production. We went from the value of design [being] the number of parts you will be selling at the end... tomorrow the value of design will be how important the dialogue you managed to create, between how many stakeholders, with which social and cultural differences, on what scale.” Antoine Fenoglio, Designer and founder of Sismo, Paris. iZindaba Zokudla (Conversations about Food) – Innovation in the Soweto Food System is a multi-stakeholder engagement project ... Read More

2014 – 2021 | Design Society Development DESIS Lab

I was a co-founder of the Design Society Development (DSD) Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) Lab in 2014 and was intimately involved in its development as a design research community of practice at the UJ Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture until I moved to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2021. Overview: The DESIS Network is a constellation of autonomous but interconnected DESIS Labs - as of 2021, there are 59 labs worldwide, with only 3 based in Africa. The DESIS Network is managed under the association of the Politecnico di Milano, Italy; The New School, USA; University of Arts London, UK; Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Jiangnan University, China; and Tonji University, China. DESIS Labs are independent, but connected, groups of academics, researchers and students who orient their design and research activities towards social innovation and sustainability. They operate at the local scale with local partners ... Read More

2016 – 2020 | Achieving Inclusive Cities through Scaling up Participatory Planning in Africa

Overview: Participatory planning has long been on the periphery of urban development. Achieving inclusive cities through scaling up participatory planning in Africa aims to develop the knowledge needed to move from participatory community-led neighbourhood planning to city-scale planning processes. In recent decades the world has experienced unprecedented urban growth. According to the United Nations 4 billion people, or 54% of the world’s population, lived in towns and cities in 2015. That number is expected to increase to 5 billion by 2030. Urban growth has outpaced the ability of many governments to build infrastructure and, in many towns and cities in the global South, provision for housing is inadequate. Consequently one in three urban dwellers live in informal settlements. Issues of insecure tenure, poor access to basic services, and insecure livelihoods are all prevalent. Although local governments may have the desire to improve the situation they are, in many cases, under-capitalised and under-capacitated. ... Read More

2016 – 2020 | Farmer Digital Information-Seeking Activities

"Co-designing digital information-seeking activities with and for the small-scale farmers of the Siyakhana Initiative" was a research project undertaken in partial fulfilment of the requirements of an research MA Design (Multimedia) at the University of Johannesburg by Tasmin Jade Donaldson, supervised by Terence Fenn and co-supervised by myself. Information is paramount to empowering people and communities, laying the foundations for “equality, sustainability and prosperity” as a critical driver of progress (Garrido & Wyber 2017:7). The internet plays an integral role in creating new possibilities to find, share, use and apply information, as well as inviting “users to develop and share their expertise”. While only half of the world’s population have access to devices, let alone online services, the need to foster the growth of an information-empowered society is more significant than it has ever been (Garrido & Wyber 2017:7). Accordingly, access to meaningful information describes how ‘information’, an intangible resource, ... Read More

2019 | Blad en Bokkie

This project explored Cape Malay cultural identity through furniture design. It was BA Hons ID project in 2019 by Wazier Karim Kara, and extended into a MA Industrial Design in 2020 into the Kanala Stories project. Both projects were supervised by myself. Overview: This design research project focused on the design of a Blad en bokkie (trestle table) inspired by Cape Malay cultural identity. The project focused on furniture because it plays a central role in Cape Malay gatherings, it was also found that Cape Malay identity was unexplored within the South African furniture design industry. Through an auto/ethnographic research approach, the study allowed Wazier to explore his own, as well as his family’s, cultural identity. Further research through literature about the history, the craftspeople, and the vibrant culture and religion of the Cape Malay community, together with insights from local furniture makers and community leaders, enabled a wide range ... Read More

2018 – 2019 | The Conversation Seat

This BA Hons Industrial Design (UJ) project began by Emma Zwart in 2018, and then continued into her MA Industrial Design (UJ) in 2019 under the supervision of myself and Dr Annemi Conradie, Senior Lecturer in Art History, North West Univerisity. Unfortunately, due to the impact of COVID-19, the project has been put on hold indefinitely but is still is a wonderful initiative that I am proud to showcase as an exploration of contemporary South African design identity through a design activist approach to collaborative furniture making. Overview: The Conversation Seat explores ways of expressing South African design identities through collaboration. More specifically, the project aimed to break down the perceived hierarchy of terms such as art, design and craft in order to showcase the diversity of creativity in South Africa. Despite its name, the Conversation Seat does not come complete with a seat. Instead, a bare frame was provided ... Read More