Designer Giles Nartey has offered a communal bench on the London Design Pageant, with an intricately carved floor that doubles as a recreation board.
Interaction was designed for 2 folks to straddle whereas dealing with the centre, the place neat rows of holes referred to as “homes” are hollowed out of the black-stained ash wooden.
These are wanted to play the West African technique recreation of Oware, taught to Nartey by his grandparents when he lived in Ghana as a toddler.
The designer created Interaction as a part of his postgraduate analysis at London’s Bartlett Faculty of Structure, the place he’s exploring African craft cultures and the way they work to embed rituals into objects.
“This piece particularly is trying on the conventional West African typology of a bench-bed, which was created sometimes by the Senufo folks from Mali and the Ivory Coast,” Oware defined.
“What Interaction is attempting to do is reimagine it as a spot for communal interplay and convivial play.”
Oware is performed by shifting 48 seeds round two parallel rows of six holes, with every participant aiming to seize extra items than their opponent.
On this case, the seeds take the type of small brass pebbles and the holes serve each a sensible and ornamental operate, forming half of a bigger topography of patterns carved into the floor of the seat.
“I wished the piece to really feel prefer it had been sculpted by a large number of interactions, every abandoning traces of their presence,” Nartey informed Dezeen.
“The bench’s design attracts inspiration from the wealthy custom of African pores and skin marking, akin to the observe of scarification,” he continued.
“It makes use of these moments of engraved and carved marks as a approach of firstly referencing the piece as an extension of the African pores and skin but additionally a chunk imbued with cultural significance and that means.”
On the London Design Pageant, Interaction is on show as a part of a bunch exhibition by Poor Collective – a social enterprise targeted on involving younger folks within the design of their communities, which took dwelling London’s rising design medal this 12 months.
The present additionally featured a duo of tables created by Em Lemaître-Downton and the V&A’s rising designer Andu Masebo as a part of a six-week mentorship program organised by Poor Collective.
Oware – also called Ayo in Yoruba-speaking components of Nigeria – has been reimagined by numerous designers in current months.
Yinka Ilori bought a vibrant pink-and-red model of the sport at this Christmas pop-up final 12 months, whereas clothier Ozwald Boateng created a high-end board with marble ft as a part of his current collaboration with Poltrona Frau.
The images is by Andy Stagg.
Interaction was on present as a part of the Powershift exhibition at London Design Pageant 2023 from 18 September to six October 2023. See our London Design Pageant 2023 information on Dezeen Occasions Information for details about the numerous different exhibitions, installations and talks that passed off all through the week.
