MIDA
Alessi @ Faculty of Informatics and Design at the CPUT
Cape Town – South Africa 2014
MIDA (made in democratic Africa) a trans-discipinary workshop devised and cured by Chiara Alessi takes its name from the Frigia emperor who used to convert to gold everything he would touch. We quoted this anecdote to refer to the power of design – when it is not just veneer or look – to change the way we look at things, to convert prejudices and to let things surprise us again.
Three Italian design teams will meet the students of the interior, surface and industrial design departments of the CPUT and they will work for one week around the theme of Object and Symbol: a contemporary African aesthetic. Odoardo Fioravanti , Resign, Peter Bottazzi e Denise Bonapace will meet 60 students and members from three local project: Chisana Tours (www.chisana.co.za); Langa Quarter (www.langaquarter.co.za) andthe young brand “Born free SA” (www.bornfreesa.com) which refers to young members born after 1994. Each of these projects will aim at bridging the gap between local and global, African and international, individual and social. We will work to produce physical objects which have to do with a domestic landscape and which can be brought and exported abroad.