Waking Moments - Design makes a welcome return to the Dakar Biennale, sounding out a clarion call to Africa's new creative generation

After a 20-year hiatus, design returns to the Dakar Biennale this year and, for curator Ousmane Mbaye, it comes at a pivotal time. ‘My curatorial practice is based on three aspects,’ he says. ‘A desire to do a design inventory in Africa; to record the materials being used; and to present the current generation of designers in Africa and its diaspora, and see their visions realised.’

- By Mazzi Odu

After a 20-year hiatus, design returns to the Dakar Biennale this year and, for curator Ousmane Mbaye, it comes at a pivotal time. ‘My curatorial practice is based on three aspects,’ he says. ‘A desire to do a design inventory in Africa; to record the materials being used; and to present the current generation of designers in Africa and its diaspora, and see their visions realised.’

Mbaye’s eponymous studio has long been at the forefront of changing design perceptions on the continent, and the 21 designers he has chosen to participate in this year’s biennale (the theme of which is ‘The Wake’) share similar intentions but varied methodologies. Speaking to four of them, it’s clear that the event promises to be an important moment on the continent.