Award-winning Cape Town sculptor Kevin Brand picks his dream team of star presenters at the recent Design Indaba 2010…

Kevin is one of South Africa’s foremost conceptual artists. He became well known for his sculpture in the 1980s, which focussed primarily on the political state of South Africa, and is considered some of the best work to have come out of the struggle. In 1994 he was awarded the FNB Vita Art Now Award for his Here XVII installation and in 2008 he received the prestigious Mercedes-Benz South Africa Award for Art in Public Spaces. Today Kevin’s work is represented in the South African National Gallery and the Johannesburg Art Gallery, amongst others. He lives and works in Cape Town, and teaches at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

Overall assessment?

The Indaba was fantastically well run. It was incredibly inspirational, and for me as someone who is very interested in three-dimensional work, I enjoyed the bias towards graphic design. I felt very inspired by the freedom. People attend the Indaba to hear about cross-discipline thinking. You get to hear about what everyone from architects to fashion designers are doing out there at the moment, and this year the cross-pollination was better than ever.

I have to congratulate Ravi Naidoo and his team on producing on absolutely world-class event. It’s soul food for anyone involved in any aspect of art or design. It was inspiring on a human level, on an intellectual level, on an aesthetic level. And it challenges the whole hierarchy thing between fine art and commercial art. It’s a great event to have here in Cape Town and I never want to miss it.

There were so many speakers that were brilliant, but here are the ones who were so good that in ten years time I will still be thinking about them and appreciating them…

Kevin’s Dream Team

(Flip each card with your mouse for more detail)

In the matter of art displayed in public areas, which is very close to my heart, Wooster Collective were absolutely brilliant. What a fantastic couple they are. They go around the world looking for art in public spaces, not necessarily graffiti, but fine art, which happens to be in public areas. They showcase this ephemeral art on their website www.woostercollective.com

Troika were also absolutely phenomenal. They took the whole place by storm. One of their pieces is in Terminal 5 at Heathrow. What they did there was create this beautiful, animated cloud, which was absolutely brilliant. For me personally though the most amazing thing was this new typography they invented for their world clock - that was mind-blowing.

Piyush Pandey, a creative director from the advertising industry, is an absolute genius. There are something like 300 languages in India, and to make ads that appeal across the board to all these different language groups, he uses humour. Phenomenal. A five-star presenter as well. Very human, absolutely brilliant.

Han Feng is a phenomenal Chinese fashion designer. The nice thing about her is how she breaks boundaries from fashion to opera to costume design and things like that. She is absolutely brilliant. I would really love to meet this girl.

Christien Meindertsma is very sophisticated. One of the things she does is knit with knitting needles about as long as this room. But the most amazing thing was her book, PIG 05049. This book was published last year, and was the only book that has ever won three of the main book prizes in the history of book publishing. It was the story of what happens to all the by-products of this specific pig. Another interesting book of hers was Checked Baggage, a book revolving around objects confiscated at security checkpoints in Schiphol Airport after 9/11.

ZA News was one of those things you see and just make you so very proud to be a South African. Well done, Zapiro and the whole team. You can check out all the latest news on their website, www.zanews.co.za

Another group who made me very proud to be a South African was the Handspring Puppet Company. They’ve been going since 1981 and they’ve worked with people like William Kentridge and have major awards in London for their work. Their Tall Horse was completely brilliant.

But the absolute gem for me was Alejandro Aravena. This architect from Chile designs new ways of building aesthetically appealing low-cost housing, which is very applicable to a South African scenario. One of the projects he worked on was regarding these little matchbox houses, all being identical. This form of low-cost housing, he says, doesn’t work, because there is no sense of ownership or pride as they all look exactly the same. Alejandro’s whole approach is about asking people who are going to live in these houses what they want and what they need, and then give them half of what they have asked for, but give them the good half.

So he designs the building, and then what he does is build half of the house you can live in. This means as people can afford it, they can apply to move into space alongside, and put in their own independent living area into the second part of the building, as the structure is there to facilitate this upgrade. And then you see how beautiful it is! in the beginning its just this horrible thing but afterwards people put in what they need, and the result is amazing. He received a standing ovation, and I personally think that this man is a genius.

At the other end of the scale, Li Edelkoort should be red-carded and struck from the role of humanity. She’s been here over the last couple of years, and we are all there waiting, and every year she never fails to disappoint with her latest banalities. This time she went on about “The new man is more sensitive. He spends a lot more time with his children, he cooks, he is much softer, and he has found different ways to living his life with multiple partners, even same gender partners.” This is literally what she says. She is cuckoo. Some people actually take her seriously and this is the danger. Fashion designers, dying for the latest trend hear her decree, “Yellow is the new pink,” and take it as gospel. But she never takes responsibility for what she says, no thought behind it.

Edelkoort was the low point for me, not Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart is a buinsesswoman who has made a huge amount of money. Li Edelkoort absolutely hates her. “Here comes the bitch,” she was heard to remark when Martha Stewart did her presentation.

The ABSA party in the stadium was another highlight. All those fortunate enough to be at the Louis Karol presentation had a very special treat. The presentation was by invitation only from ABSA to their special guests to show the new stadium off. It was a beautiful function and hats off to ABSA for being so involved. Louis Karol, as the architect responsible for the stadium was the guest speaker. The first thing he said was “I did not design the thing, it had nothing to do with me. We were obliged by FIFA when we got the contract that we had to use an international company.” Bottom line, he said, they had experience building stadiums and what they came up with is absolutely brilliant. Then he went on to talk about public spaces from times of ancient man through Rome through the industrial ages to now. It was about a 25 to 30 minute talk. Just listening to this man talk about a subject he knows so much about was absolutely brilliant. One of the best of the whole Indaba.

That’s my pick of the Indaba, there are others I might have missed but in the space available these are the ones I most enjoyed. Can’t wait till next year.