by Uno de Waal (@Unodewaal) Today we’re getting back into the swing of things with Design Annotator to show you:
- Photographs from this year’s AfrikaBurn Festival
- An interview with Brett Rubin, an artist pushing the boundaries the photographic medium
- Curiocity Backpackers, recently founded by Bheki Dube in Maboneng
- Motherland Coffee Co, a great place to work away from work
- What the day job of Superbalist’s art curator, Zach Nossel, entails
- 10 botanical-themed spaces and projects
- A case study of the adidas Originals ‘Unite Joburg’ campaign
AfrikaBurn: The year of the trickster
For 358 days of the year, the Tankwa desert in the Northern Cape is a desolate, windswept Martian wasteland of brittle scrub, metallic rock and dust. But, for one week in late autumn each year, a glorious out-of-season spring occurs, transforming the landscape into a mirage of shifting shapes, colours and sounds.
The AfrikaBurn festival, now in its eighth year, is a shared experiment in radical inclusion, participation, expression, decommodification and self-reliance. It’s a celebration of immediacy, where no programme or line-up dictates the flow of events; rather, the festival takes its own organic course, created by the people who attend it.
See more photographs from AfrikaBurn 2014.
Featured: Brett Rubin
Johannesburg-based photographer, Brett Rubin, speaks to us about the necessity of experimentation; the cultural paradigms inherent in everything we create; the politics of portraiture; and taking photos in the ‘first person’.
Rubin is one half of the creative consultancy VATIC, is a highly regarded fashion and commercial photographer, and is an artist pushing the boundaries of what the photographic ‘medium’ means.
Read our interview with Rubin.
Curiocity Backpackers
Bheki Dube, a young South African entrepreneur, recently founded ‘Curiocity Backpackers’ in the heart of Maboneng. The accommodation, as well as the guided experiences through the inner city that it offers, allow locals and people from around the world to see Johannesburg at its finest.
Dube’s main aim is to break the negative connotations that surround ‘the city of gold’.
We asked the photographer-turned-entrepreneur a few questions about his new venture.
Out of office: Motherland Coffee Co
Motherland Coffee Co is owned by Rob Maud, Kirstin Maud and Seb Schneider. In 2009, the Mauds travelled the globe, only to realise just how special their motherland really is, and so they opened up Motherland with Schneider to celebrate the humble African coffee bean.
Find out more about their journey and where to find a Motherland near you.
My day job: Zach Nossel | Art curator at Superbalist.com
Zach Nossel is the art curator at Superbalist.com, a local online art, design and style retailer. While the traditional role of an art curator has been in existence for ages, selecting art to sell online is a whole other ball game.
We caught up with Nossel to chat about exactly what his job entails.
10 botanical spaces and projects
Over the last while, we’ve had the pleasure of noticing, and in some instances speaking to, a group of creatives who have made their medium or informed their design with the living world of plants and flowers.
So, before we plunge headfirst into winter, let’s dally briefly to smell the roses and soak up some gorgeous botanical goodness.
See the full list of botanical spaces and projects.
Case study: adidas Originals | Unite Joburg
adidas Originals | Unite Joburg | Case study from MACHINE on Vimeo.
Unite Joburg was an integrated digital campaign that consisted of a concert performance from Detroit rapper Danny Brown, a unique online ticketing mechanic, a photography exhibition and a short documentary film, all with the aim of getting adidas Originals to stake a claim within the minds of Joburg’s youth.
Find a breakdown of each of the components that made up the Unite Joburg campaign here.
Design Annotator is a regular column on MarkLives featuring the top design work from South Africa’s biggest online creative showcase, Between 10 and 5, which is curated by publisher Uno de Waal (@Unodewaal), inaugural South African winner of the British Council South Africa‘s Young Creative Entrepreneur (#YCE) Digital Publishing Award in March 2014.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!