It has been nearly 20 years since we first met Botswanan designer Peter Mabeo in New York. The world and the design industry were different places back then: introspective, siloed, materialistic, frivolous. We marvelled at bombastic endeavours in shiny showrooms - ‘let’s supersize it, let’s carve it in marble, let’s stud it with diamonds’ - nothing was too extravagant; the ceiling of luxury could never be reached. Against this gluttonous backdrop Mabeo was an unusual figure. Voices from the entire continent of Africa were all but non-existent in what we arrogantly described as a global industry of design.
