Palazzo Litta Cultura, the cultural project born from the cooperation between the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for Lombardy and MoscaPartners, continues its exploration of the contemporary world in 2018, moving from Japan to Africa with the AfricaAfrica, exploring the Now of African design and photography exhibition, sponsored by the Embassy of the Ivory Coast, the South African Consulate and the Burkina Faso Consulate.

With a look at the contemporary design of sub-Saharan Africa - the area of over 24 million square kilometres extending from east to west on the southern Sahara line - design, photography, music and cinema are once again intertwined in programming an interdisciplinary proposal: twenty-two creatives, through forty design products of the last two years (2016-2017) and fifty-five photographic works express their unprecedented point of view, giving back the image of a dynamic, innovative and vital reality.

The creators of the exhibition are MoscaPartnersand MIA Photo Fair Projects, respectively curators of the design and photography section; at the same time, the musical programming is curated by Ponderosa Music&Art.

"We have chosen designers who represent the great heterogeneity of this extensive and semi-unknown area of a world very close to us, as is Africa", says Elisa Astori, curator for MoscaPartners in the section dedicated to design, with the contribution of the South African designer Cara Judd.

The natural materials, the inspiration to archetypal forms of the land of origin, the constant presence of colour, the reuse of recycled materials such as plastic, metal sheet and wood are recurring features in the works of the designers on show. The great freedom expressed in the design approach allows them to give shape to objects with a highly original aesthetic.

Examples are the metal sheet and oil barrels artifacts by Hamed Ouattara and Ousmane Kouyate, the interpretations of daily objects of Inoussa Dao.