Part of the Project
The Ukhamba lamp grew out of Ari Geva’s and Sian Eliot’s love for woven metallic mesh, the pooling of their experience and knowledge and their desire to create an iconic South African light. The mesh’s reflective texture gives the light a weightless, veil-like and elusive quality. The lamp’s form is inspired by the Zulu ‘Ukhamba’, a hand-coiled, unfired burnished clay pot. This traditional object is a perfect example of an age-old vernacular craft that has been repeated and refined over considerable time, resulting in an elegant and mastered form. For this technically challenging piece, the production process and final product requires equal ingenuity. The designers are working with engineers to design and build the tooling for production.
In creating and participating in the engineering process, our inspiration comes to life and more innovation occurs, Geva and Eliot note.
The Ukhamba lamp was on display at the Africa is Now exhibition at Design Indaba Expo 2014, under the Africa is Sharp! theme.
