Ikea Collaborates with Top African Designers for New Collection

This collaboration was named ‘Överallt’, which means ‘everywhere’ in Swedish. In this collection, a variety of armchairs, benches, tableware and textiles were created at Design Indaba in Cape Town. The designers who were asked to partake in this collaboration met at a house that IKEA built in the expo space. In the span of a year, the designers flew back and forth between South Africa and Sweden while they were working on their projects.

Ten designers represented five different African countries in collaboration with five in-house designers. Each designer was able to take a little bit of their own culture and put it back into the designs that they created, as well as many of them focusing on an overall theme of sustainability.

The collection comprises a line of armchairs, benches, tableware and textiles. Designers were paired together to create the beautiful new products. Selly Raby Kane, a Senegalese artist and designer, collaborated with in-house designer Iina Vuorivirta to create an incredible basket with hair-braiding techniques. Laduma Ngxokolo, a South African fashion designer, teamed up with in-house designer Mikael Axelsson to create a gorgeous rug that uses one of Ngxokolo’s signature geometric patterns. As a nod to sustainability, a woven textile was created from traditional jute fibres and recycled silver food packaging. Inspired by the Egyptian Revolution in 2012, design partners Hend Riad and Mariam Hazem, both from the Cairo-based design company Reform Studio, worked together to create the woven textile.

The collection will be available May 2019 at most IKEA locations for a limited time. Stay tuned for the specifics to be announced.