Afrika Designs

The terms “colonial,” “post-colonial,” and the pejorative “pre-colonial,” as they relate to the occupation of Afrika by European countries from 1880 to 1913 (the New Imperialism), ignore or silence the Afrikan voice despite the relatively short duration of the scramble for Afrika prior to WW1. Afrikan values, beliefs, acceptable standards of behavior, dress, education and governance, the forced adoption of colonists’ culture, artistic sensibility and language, economic systems, and the dismissal of indigenous knowledge and cultural systems in favor of more “superior” colonial practices, is the result of this relatively short period in Afrikan history. Still the Euro-American influence and its inclination to locate discourses on Afrika from an emic, Western, and diasporic perspective persists. This invokes the ire of Afrika-focused commentators, like Olufemi Taiwo, who insist that colonialists substituted themselves for the agency of the colonized, and that decolonizing rhetoric should be more about reclaiming Afrikan agency and the power dynamic lost during the colonization era. Against this backdrop there is evidence supporting how Afrikanness is being expressed across design disciplines. This article considers how Afrikans are producing fresh discourse through their creative design practice, using varied influences and an Afronowist ideology. Applying a model derived from a critical inspection of Afronowism, cultural identity, and notions of Afrikanness informed by Pauwels’ Visual Method, two artifacts created by notable designers are interrogated. It is clear from this exercise that, consciously or otherwise, Afrikan designers are delving deep into their collective consciousnesses and are creating contemporary, memorable, authentic work, redolent with an Afrikan sensibility—Autochthonous design!