Q&A WITH CHARL EDWARDS

An art director by trade, Edwards is one of the Yenza stand’s creators – along with Kara Furter, Lucie de Moyencourt and Renee Rossouw. What inspired the Yenza stand?

Our visits to townships. We wanted to create a stand inspired by what we saw on those visits, so we knew we would be using crates, vinyl and plywood, and lots of colour. These cheap materials added a lot of punch and character and created the perfect vibe for our showcased product. Also important to us was to display the items in an unpretentious and very simple manner.

What is your favourite item featured on it?

Although each item has its own story and context, I would have to single out the red stitched chair. To me, it’s become the hero of our stand and showcase, and so beautifully illustrates what Yenza is all about. Nonkoliseko, a Khayelitsha resident, found a broken red school chair, decided to take it home with her and fixed it with red electrical tape. She’s never considered herself a maker and still laughs off the idea, but to us it’s the perfect example of everyday making in townships: design for necessity through creativity.

What was the response to the stand?

The expo was our first testing ground. We were keen to find out whether what we were doing made sense within the context of Design Indaba and WDC2014. The response has been incredible – from people covering all walks of life.

But, most importantly, residents of townships loved what we had done with these items. The positive response has proven the need for this type of creativity to be validated within the larger scope of design-making in South Africa, an often neglected area of making. We wanted to use the indaba as a platform to push the boundaries of how people perceive South African design, to widen the scope and create dialogue, arguing that makers living in shacks deserve equal attention, especially in the year of WDC2014, even in just the smallest way.