Highlights From Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne

In its 10th year, the festival explores the ever-changing state of technology, work and society

Located in the south east of France, the coal mining city of Saint-Etienne launched the Biennale Internationale Design 20 years ago. The 10th iteration recently opened (and will run through early April). Within, one will find an exploration of the concept of change. This theme, officially “Shifting Work Paradigms” was chosen by Olivier Peyricot, Scientific Director of the Biennale and Director of the Research Department …

Link About It: This Week’s Picks

A hijab for Muslim athletes, holding the sun in your hand, feminist sculptures and more in our look at the web

1. Hold a Piece of the Sun, Here on Earth If you need a little inspiration, look no further: humans have managed to collect a tiny piece of the sun, and bring it back to Earth. Even more amazingly, this happened 15 years ago, when “charged particles shot out into space from the Sun’s upper atmosphere.” Usually they’d disappear into the solar system, but a …

Design Indaba 2017: Sankara Rugs

Nkuli Mlangeni's graphically modern textiles untangle a diminishing handicraft to win the festival's Most Beautiful Object in South Africa award

Tying together the world’s artisanal past and millennial future is multidisciplinary designer Nkuli Mlangeni, who, at this year’s Design Indaba festival, took home the award for Most Beautiful Object in South Africa with her graphically modern Sankara Rugs. Mlangeni grew up in Kagiso, a township in the Gauteng Province outside of Johannesburg, but spent three years studying social innovation and entrepreneurship in Bern, Switzerland, as …