100 Beautiful Baskets
100 Beautiful Baskets is a contemporary exhibition at the V&A Waterfront celebrating Africa’s unique basket-weaving traditions. It showcases woven vessels from different communities – stretching from Ghana to Zambia and Uganda. With a strong focus on Southern Africa’s diverse groups of basket-weavers, this first-of-its-kind exhibition brings together some of the most revered names in basketry, giving the highly skilled handcraft the recognition it deserves.
The V&A Waterfront’s Joy from Africa to the World project includes the 100 Beautiful Baskets exhibition, as well as other installations throughout the precinct. Read more about Joy from Africa.
100 Beautiful Baskets is curated by Cathy O'Clery and Platform, and will be on display at the V&A Waterfront from November 2021 to January 2022.
Meta-Dreams Towers by Mia Mélange
Mia Mélange’s Meta-Dreams Towers were born out of our desire to rise above the pandemic and to advance beyond it. The towers are rooted in the principles of our “Celebrate Spring & Summer Collection”: to create something bright and beautiful after a dire winter in the throes of a global pandemic. The brightness and beauty of this collection symbolises the promise of spring - with reference to the season and the post-pandemic world. The title “Meta-Dreams Towers” is an embodiment of the design of the product. “Meta” comes from the Greek μετά, meaning "after" or "beyond”. We’re inspired to look beyond the pandemic. A local businessman once advised us to always plan for the best-case scenario. This optimistic advice breeds creativity and productivity and results in achieving much more than planning for a worst-case scenario. The “Dreams” part of the title refers to how we dreamed up the design, and how we're dreaming up our best-case scenarios. The noun “tower” means a tall, narrow building. The verb means to “rise” or “reach a great height”.
Mia Mélange Celebrate Spring & Summer Collection
Winter during the throes of a global pandemic was dreary. Stellenbosch, Mia Mélange’s hometown, is normally a bustling town filled with visitors from all over the world who flock here for the world class wine, food, natural and cultural beauty, and so much more that the town has to offer. But during winter of 2020, Stellenbosch was sombre. The town was ghostly. Days in studio were grey, overlooking a constantly empty street. Restaurants were either closed, or very quiet. It felt like we were living in a post-apocalyptic town. At Mia Mélange, we decided we needed to create some sunshine with a new bright and beautiful collection! As lime green buds began to sprout on the oak trees lining our town’s streets, a promise of spring, we launched our “Celebrate Spring & Summer Collection”! And all of a sudden, it was so bright and colourful in our studio!
Mia Mélange’s “Celebrate Spring & Summer Collection” includes storage baskets, with and without lids, planter baskets, hanging planter baskets, and placemats and coasters. The colour rope is a durable South African sourced polypropylene / polyester. The ivory rope is South African 100% cotton. Mia Mélange baskets are made from rope which we carefully sew together in a coiling technique. The cotton is grown locally in South Africa by farmers who are members of the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI).