IKEA collaborates with Design Indaba to create IKEA's first all-African collection

9 Feb 2017

Design Indaba has announced its collaboration with global homeware giant IKEA to create IKEA's first-ever exclusive, all-African collection, which will begin at Design Indaba Festival 2017.

Ravi Naidoo of Design Indaba has drawn from an extensive network of designers, architects and creatives from South Africa, Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, Angola, Ivory Coast and Rwanda to collaborate with IKEA around modern rituals and the importance they play in the home.

Marcus Engman of IKEA and Ravi Naidoo of Design Indaba with the group of designers set to create IKEA's first-ever exclusive, all-African collection.

“The creative explosion, which is taking place in several cities around Africa right now, is something IKEA is curious about. We want to learn from this and spread it to the rest of the world. Working together with these designers and creatives gives us the opportunity to do so,” says Marcus Engman, design manager at IKEA.

The selected designers will meet up with a group of IKEA in-house designers to work on the collection during the Design Indaba Conference in Cape Town 1-3 March 2017, ready to launch in 2019.

“It’s affirming for the world’s biggest furniture and homeware store to partner with Design Indaba to curate its first African collection and we have learnt so much from the collaboration to date – the designers and ourselves. The scale at IKEA is staggering, yet it is still true to its founding principles, with which we find such symmetry. It looks towards democratising design and is happy to be infiltrated by external ideas. In addition, we love its credo: a better everyday life for everyone. Now, urban Africa and our intrepid pan-continental group of reformers, thinkers, makers and activists will also inspire it. Can’t wait for the launch,” says Naidoo, founder of Design Indaba.

For more information, go to www.designindaba.com.