The exhibition Common Methods: First Edition is the culmination of two years of research by director, South African Agata Karolina. A year ago Karolina, along with fellow creative Matylda Krzykowski, of Polish heritage, co-founded Common Methods after collaborating on various projects and finding a mutual story and connection (read our interview with them here).
Karolina and Krzykowski wanted to explore what would happen when designers from different disciplines, cultures and countries came together to find common ground.
"Common Methods intends to look into the intersection between design, production, living and all social issues around it," says Karolina. "While doing that, we raise the question: What do we have in common?"
The exhibition, which opened recently in Cape Town, showcases the results of three cross-cultural, cross-continental collaborations.
Two designers from the Netherlands, Phil Procter and Lio de Bruin, were teamed up with two South African designers, Mathew Nielsen of Matblac and Natalie du Toit of Indigi Designs. The teams were tasked with working in a specific material and joined forces with producers. De Bruin and Nielsen worked in leather supplied by Woodheads, while Procter and du Toit explored bronze with the support of Bronze Age. De Bruin also worked with the weavers of Design Afrika to find new common ground.
Their collaboration took place over an intensive 43 days and resulted in 11 new products, shown in our Lookbook above.
You can also look through our Facebook gallery of the products in full colour.
Common Methods: First Edition runs until 24 August at 75 Harrington Street, Cape Town.
