until Sunday February 21 2016

Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
T : +34 94 435 90 90
Avenida Abandoibarra, 2
48001 Bilbao
Spain

A CONTINENT OF CONTEMPORARY DESIGN

Making Africa – A Continent of Contemporary Design showcases works from a diverse range of creative fields: object and furniture design, graphic arts, illustration, fashion, architecture, urban planning, art, craft, film, photography, digital and analogue approaches. These works deliberately occupy the grey area between the disciplines, and yet they provide concrete answers to the question of what twenty-first century design can and should achieve. For example, they recognize new possibilities in the use of material; they are oriented to the process rather than the result and make bold statements about the future.

These contemporary creations forge a link to the middle of the twentieth century, when a young generation celebrated its liberation from colonialism and self-assuredly asserted its place in the world and its right to a promising future. Throughout Making Africa, examples of art and design from that era are juxtaposed with recent works. What the exhibition does not strive to present, however, is a complete picture of design in Africa. Comprising 54 nations, more than 2000 languages and cultures and a billion inhabitants, the continent is simply too large, too complex and too diverse. What the exhibition offers instead is a new story, one perhaps not yet known. It is one possibility among many for looking at Africa and an invitation in this regard to embrace a wholly new perspective.