Part of the Project
From the Series
The Colour Cup is a range of nifty little light bulb covers that slip onto bare bulbs and transform a purely utilitarian item into a remarkable décor piece.
The Colour Cup is the outcome of teamwork and design that seeks to better the lives of low-income families around South Africa. Editions in Craft, founded by Renée Padt and Ikko Yokoyama and based in Stockholm, Sweden, is an international platform for artists and designers to explore the technical and artistic possibilities of traditional crafts.
Editions in Craft teamed up with the Siyazama Project, a bead craft collective, and the Simunye Craft Collective from KwaZulu-Natal to develop marketable items that ensure a regular source of income for members. The result is the Colour Cup, which exploits the fact that glass beads let light and colour through in a unique and beautiful manner.
Colour Cup is the outcome of the teamwork. Made of glass beads, it has the ability to let light through and colour it, while covering the light bulb as a second skin, say Editions in Craft members.
The Colour Cup series was featured as part of Design Indaba Expo’s Africa is Now exhibition under the theme “Africa is Transformed”, which looked at how Africans have a make-do approach to materiality, transforming what’s at hand unto unexpected objects and designs that delight.
