Mihloti Ya Ntsako catalog

From the designer’s website:

Mihloti ya Ntsako [which translates from Xitsonga to “tears of joy”] chronicles the coming into being of the Bongi Dhlomo Collection, a unique compendium of 138 artworks produced in the previous century by well-known and unheralded black South African artists. Overseen by Bongi Dhlomo, one of the most accomplished artists, curators and arts administrators of her generation, this remarkable collection was formed to provide aesthetic glimpses into the personal and collective experiences of black South Africans during the tumultuous twentieth century, and to facilitate meaningful dialogue between contemporary audiences and the country’s recent history.

Written by art historian Pfunzo Sidogi, this book situates the artworks in the Bongi Dhlomo Collection within the broader socio-political, economic and cultural currents of the twentieth century.

Editorial designer Oliver Barstow together with Pfunzo and Bongi worked to make design choices that would situate the book within its Southern African context. Following Kurt Campbell’s research into decolonial typography, they chose the slab serif Azania drawn by the South African type designer Jan Erasmus for the body text. They selected the type family Movement for the display text, drawn by another South African designer, Noel Pretorius, with his type design partner María Ramos. Movement was made in collaboration with the South African dancer Andile Vellem who emulated the Latin alphabet as a series of embodied movements. In the spirit of its conception, Movement is also a freely available family.

The colour scheme and graphic elements for the book were drawn from Avhashoni Mainganye’s artwork The Struggle of the Objects, a screen print from the Bongi Dhlomo Collection. Mihloti ya Ntsako was published by the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP), in association with the Javett Foundation. Read more about it on the blog of art platform Latitudes.