richard hart at design indaba 2011

left: noma bar (european artist) right: garth walker (african artist) sub-theme: saint-and-sinner

the theme of design indaba 2011 was ‘what will creativity hold for the future?’. as usual, this year’s conference speakers hailed from all parts of the world sharing their knowledge from their various creative fields to an attentive audience. among the internationals was the representation of home-grown talent in the form of graphic designer richard hart co-founder of disturbance studio based in durban, south africa, which he started in 1997 with sister susie hart.

among discussing a number of creative projects which are completely ‘useless’ but provide an influential source of creativity to him, he also shared a few personal projects the studio has completed over the years including ‘them and us‘ which disturbance curated in collaboration with amnesty international.

left: brendan austin (european artist) right: roger ballen (african artist) sub-theme: pull-and-push

the initiative aimed at bringing together 20 european and 20 african creatives from the disciplines of visual arts, design, illustration and photography as a means of exploring the similarities and differences between ‘first and third world views and aesthetics’ based on a number of sub-themes, by pairing up one artist from europe with one artist from africa.

the group was assigned two prescribed colors – blue and yellow for those of european descent and red and green for those of african descent – each individually developing one poster revolving around the subject of tolerance (or intolerance). the result is 20 double-sided posters – one side representing theeuropean perspective while the other side displays the theme as interpreted by the african artists – which though distinctly products of their makers, speak to one another about sub-themes such as:‘big-and-small’, ‘buy-and-sell’, ‘clean-and-dirty’, ‘here-and-there’, ‘in-and-out’, ‘laugh-and-cry’ etc.

left: rachel thomas (european artist) right: disturbance (african artist) sub-theme: laugh-and-cry

left: R2 (european artist) right: brandt botes (african artist) sub-theme: reason-and-madness

left: slæktskap (european artist) right: lyall coburn (african artist) sub-theme: buy-and-sell

left: anne harild (european artist) right: emeka ogboh (african artist) sub-theme: in-and-out

left: martin nicolausson (european artist) right: merwe marchand le roux sub-theme: big-and-small

left: emma löfström (european artist) right: peet pienaar (african artist) sub-theme: clean-and-dirty

left: kilian eng (european artist) right: richard hart (african artist) sub-theme: here-and-there

left: dust (european artist) right: love and hate studio (african artist) sub-theme: life-and-death

‘them and us’ packaging

the 40 posters are packaged together, accompanied by a 64 page publication that profiles each of the artists outlining their purpose and process of the project. all of the proceeds from the sales of the package go to amnesty international to help in the global fight against intolerance.