Recycled and Improvised Materials at Design Indaba

Perhaps the biggest theme at this year’s Design Indaba in Cape Town was the use of improvised and recycled materials. Driftwood, plastic bottles, discarded packaging and elements of secondhand objects (amongst other items) found their way into the South African exhibition. It was also a global theme with several international speakers at the conference touching on the trend as a result of both recessionary times and a growing eco-conciousness.

The Design Indaba often felt like a meeting point between movements coming from two very different roots: one from the developed world’s angst about destroying the environment and the other being inspired by the poverty-fueled inventiveness of Africa’s townships.

One of the inspiring things about the event was that maybe Africa had something to teach the rest of the world when it came to recycling. In South Africa almost everything is recycled: old clothes and phones don’t gather dust in the bottom of draws – they’re redistributed, paint tins become storage containers, wires become toys and decorations are made from discarded bottle tops.

Whilst some may question the use of township artisans’s skills and materials for the creation of expensive design items for more privileged buyers, many of the companies involved in Design Indaba were employing communities of workers and providing valuable employment opportunities.

Liv Design is just one example: they use recycled materials in all of their work, and created one of my favorite items from the exhibition The Afro Dutch Chest (pictured above). It’s also worth mentioning that the cheeky design duo behind the company handed me a Two Hundred Thousand Dollar Zimbabwean bank notes as a business card (1 Dollar US is about 37 Million Zim Dollars at the moment).

Check our a few more examples of the recycled materials trend:

This table was made out of discarded pieces of wood by Gordon Rattey:

Light made from clothes pegs:

Bag made from recycled shipping packaging by Give-It-Bag: