Afrika-seminar: Vernacular Architecture and Design in Africa: A Roundtable (København)

Roundtable on vernacular architecture and design in Africa with editor of Ogojiii magazine Thomas Noppen, photographer Marie Visti Hansen & anthropologist Morten Nielsen

Thomas Noppen:  ‘Renaissance of a Movement: Vernacular Design through an African Lens’ Based on his engagement with African design in particular, Thomas Noppen will speak about the renaissance of “vernacular design”, a design movement that particularly emphasises the strengths and capabilities of local environments and culture and re-appropriates them in a modern context.

Marie Visti Hansen: ‘Street Fashion in Kampala: Personal expressions among Uganda’s urban middle-class’ In this presentation, Marie Visti Hansen will first discuss why and how a particular aesthetics of ‘dressing well’ – as evident in visible street styles – has emerged in the late 2000s in Kampala. She will then address, from a design perspective, what it is that urban Ugandans are mastering and what this might teach the creative sector in a country like Denmark.

Morten Nielsen: ‘Migrating Models: The aesthetics of travelling material forms in Maputo’, Mozambique Based on long-term and extensive ethnographic fieldwork on urban forms and middle class aspirations in Maputo, Mozambique, Morten Nielsen will discuss the ways in which various aesthetic models of urban living articulate to produce particular material designs in urban interiors and exteriors in contemporary Maputo. 

The roundtable will be facilitated by Amanda Hammar, Director of the Centre of African Studies.

Thomas Noppen edited the Pan-African design magazine Ogojiii. As part of the initial editorial team, he developed the particular editorial profile dedicated to cover innovation in design, enterprise and current affairs on the continent.

Marie Visti Hansen combines education from the Danish School of Design, Copenhagen Business School and the Centre of African Studies, Copenhagen University. In 2017 she initiated the project Kampala Street Fashion in collaboration with Ugandan photographer Jjumba Martin, subsequently exhibited in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Silkeborg.

Morten Nielsen is a social anthropologist, previously based at Arhus University. Since November 2018 he has been based at the National Museum of Denmark where he is a senior researcher. In 2015, he founded the transdisciplinary Urban Orders Research Center at Aarhus University, which focuses on popular participation, self-management and collaborative design in urban spaces.

The event will be followed by the launch of CAS’s photography collection, including two photographs from the Kampala Street Fashion exhibition, presented by Marie Visti Hansen, and a collection of black-and-white photographs of Ghanaian religious rituals and spaces, entitled ‘Spirit Places’, presented by Dr Kasper Knudsen.

Organizer: Centre of African Studies