I moved back home 15 years ago after a 20-year stay in the United States, and Africa called me back. And I founded my country's first graphic design and new media college. And I called it the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts. The idea, the dream, was really for a sort of Bauhaus sort of school where new ideas were interrogated and investigated, the creation of a new visual language based on the African creative heritage. We offer a two-year diploma to talented students who have successfully completed their high school education. And typography's a very important part of the curriculum and we encourage our students to look inward for influence. Here's a poster designed by one of the students under the theme "Education is a right." Some logos designed by my students. Africa has had a long tradition of writing, but this is not such a well-known fact, and I wrote the book "Afrikan Alphabets" to address that. The different types of writing in Africa, first was proto-writing, as illustrated by Nsibidi, which is the writing system of a secret society of the Ejagham people in southern Nigeria. So it's a special-interest writing system. The Akan of people of Ghana and [Cote d'Ivoire] developed Adinkra symbols some 400 years ago, and these are proverbs, historical sayings, objects, animals, plants, and my favorite Adinkra system is the first one at the top on the left. It's called Sankofa. It means, "Return and get it." Learn from the past. This pictograph by the Jokwe people of Angola tells the story of the creation of the world. At the top is God, at the bottom is man, mankind, and on the left is the sun, on the right is the moon. All the paths lead to and from God. These secret societies of the Yoruba, Kongo and Palo religions in Nigeria, Congo and Angola respectively, developed this intricate writing system which is alive and well today in the New World in Cuba, Brazil and Trinidad and Haiti. In the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the Ituri society, the men pound out a cloth out of a special tree, and the women, who are also the praise singers, paint interweaving patterns that are the same in structure as the polyphonic structures that they use in their singing -- a sort of a musical score, if you may. In South Africa, Ndebele women use these symbols and other geometric patterns to paint their homes in bright colors, and the Zulu women use the symbols in the beads that they weave into bracelets and necklaces. Ethiopia has had the longest tradition of writing, with the Ethiopic script that was developed in the fourth century A.D. and is used to write Amharic, which is spoken by over 24 million people. King Ibrahim Njoya of the Bamum Kingdom of Cameroon developed Shü-mom at the age of 25. Shü-mom is a writing system. It's a syllabary. It's not exactly an alphabet. And here we see three stages of development that it went through in 30 years. The Vai people of Liberia had a long tradition of literacy before their first contact with Europeans in the 1800s. It's a syllabary and reads from left to right. Next door, in Sierra Leone, the Mende also developed a syllabary, but theirs reads from right to left. Africa has had a long tradition of design, a well-defined design sensibility, but the problem in Africa has been that, especially today, designers in Africa struggle with all forms of design because they are more apt to look outward for influence and inspiration. The creative spirit in Africa, the creative tradition, is as potent as it has always been, if only designers could look within. This Ethiopic cross illustrates what Dr. Ron Eglash has established: that Africa has a lot to contribute to computing and mathematics through their intuitive grasp of fractals. Africans of antiquity created civilization, and their monuments, which still stand today, are a true testimony of their greatness. Most probably, one of humanity's greatest achievements is the invention of the alphabet, and that has been attributed to Mesopotamia with their invention of cuneiform in 1600 BC, followed by hieroglyphics in Egypt, and that story has been cast in stone as historical fact. That is, until 1998, when one Yale professor John Coleman Darnell discovered these inscriptions in the Thebes desert on the limestone cliffs in western Egypt, and these have been dated at between 1800 and 1900 B.C., centuries before Mesopotamia. Called Wadi el-Hol because of the place that they were discovered, these inscriptions -- research is still going on, a few of them have been deciphered, but there is consensus among scholars that this is really humanity's first alphabet. Over here, you see a paleographic chart that shows what has been deciphered so far, starting with the letter A, "ālep," at the top, and "bêt," in the middle, and so forth. It is time that students of design in Africa read the works of titans like Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal's Cheikh Anta Diop, whose seminal work on Egypt is vindicated by this discovery. The last word goes to the great Jamaican leader Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the Akan people of Ghana with their Adinkra symbol Sankofa, which encourages us to go to the past so as to inform our present and build on a future for us and our children. It is also time that designers in Africa stop looking outside. They've been looking outward for a long time, yet what they were looking for has been right there within grasp, right within them. Thank you very much. (Applause)
15年前,我回到了故鄉 在那之前,我已經在美國待了20年了 非洲希望我回去 我創建了我國第一所 平面設計暨新媒體學院 我叫它「辛巴威數位視覺藝術學院」 其創校理念與夢想 可以算是某種程度上的包浩斯主義 包浩斯其實是一所學校 在那裡,所有新想法都會被嚴格審視 與研究 而在與非洲傳統文化的創意結合之下 我們創造了一個新的視覺語言 對於每位有天份的高中畢業生 每位順利完成學業的畢業生 我們都將頒發一張兩年畢業證書 其中,「印刷術」是我們很重要的一堂課 我們鼓勵學生深入其中 找尋印刷能帶來的影響力 這是一個學生做的海報 主題是 "教育即權利" 這些是我學生們設計的標誌 非洲擁有久遠的書寫文化 卻不是很多人知道 因此,我寫了一本「Afrikan 字母」來說明這件事 非洲文字有許多種書寫的方法 最開始的是類文字系統 這是恩西比底 (Nsibidi) 文 這是南奈及利亞一個 Ejaham 人的神秘部落 所使用的書寫方式 所以它是一已成專業學問的書寫系統 象牙海岸與迦納的阿肯族人 在400年前創造的阿丁克拉 (Adinkra) 符號 這些 [阿丁克拉(Adinkra)] 符號代表著諺語、歷史、 物體、動物、植物 而我最愛的阿丁克拉文字 正是這個左上角的圖案 叫"Sankofa" 它的意思是 "回到過去並帶回有用的東西" 也就是從歷史中學習 這個安哥拉 Jokwe 人所繪的象形圖 象徵著世界萬物的發展過程 最上面的是上帝,最底下的是人類 而左邊是太陽,右邊則是月亮 所有的路徑皆通往並起源於上帝 這些剛果約魯巴的神祕部落 和個別分散在奈及利亞、剛果 與安哥拉的帕羅教徒 發展出這套複雜的文字系統 並於現今活耀於新世界中 像是古巴,巴西,特立尼達島和海地等 在剛果民主共和國帶雨林帶 伊圖利部落中 男人使勁敲打以製特殊植物所成之衣 女人,同時也是歌頌女歌手們 繪製交織的圖騰 其紋路架構正如同 她們唱歌所使用的和弦架構一般 如果硬要說的話,也可以說是一種樂譜 在南非,恩德貝勒的女人 用這些符號和其他幾何圖樣 來為她們的家漆上亮麗色彩 而祖魯女人則將這些符號用在串珠上 她們將其串進手鐲與項鍊之中 她們將其串進手鐲與項鍊之中 依索比亞有著最悠久的書寫文化 在西元前四世紀時 依索比亞的文字手稿便已出現 並用來書寫阿姆哈拉語 一個超過 2400 萬人在使用的語言 喀麥隆共和國裡 巴姆穆王國的國王 Ibrahim Njoya 在 25 歲的時候發展出 Shü-mom Shü-mom 是一種文字書寫系統 它是一張字音表,而不盡然是張字母表 在此,我們可以看到 30 年來 所經歷的三階段的發展過程 早在西元 1800 多年 利比里亞的瓦伊人第一次接觸歐洲人之前 他們便已經擁有一悠久的文字文化 它是一個由左讀到右的字音表 鄰近的獅子山共和國內 門德人也發展出了一套字音表 但是卻是由右讀到左 非洲有一悠久的設計文化 並著名於其高設計敏感度 但是,特別是現今這世代,非洲一直有個問題 幾乎所有設計領域的非洲的設計者,都很艱苦 幾乎所有設計領域的非洲的設計者,都很艱苦 因為他們通常都只習慣於 追求外在層面的影響與啟發 要是設計家們能夠看的更加深入 看進隱藏在底下的文化與深度 非洲那具有創造性的精神 和其充滿創造潛力的傳統文化 便能如以往般,依然如此強大並具有影響力 這個伊索比亞的橫紋便說明了 羅恩伊格拉斯博士 (Dr. Ron Eglash) 曾經說過的, 非洲各分形的直覺型意識 為電腦運算與數學貢獻良多! 古非洲人創造了仍流傳至今的文明與 與依然豎立於現代的石碑們 再再的證明了他們的偉大 文字的發明可以算是人類最偉大的成就之一 文字的發明可以算是人類最偉大的成就之一 而這可追朔至西元前 1600 年 美索不達米亞的楔形文字 接著是埃及的象形文字 這些歷史軌跡和真相都被鑄刻在石頭上 直到西元1998年 一位耶魯大學的教授 約翰·科爾曼達內爾 (John Coleman Darnell) 在西埃及底斯比沙漠的 石灰岩懸崖上發現了這些碑銘 且上面註明了美索不達米亞 楔形文字出現之前數百年, 西元前 1800 和 1900 年的日期 稱為恐怖峽谷字母 起源於發現他們的地點 在這些碑銘中 (研究仍然持續進行中) 少數字母和某些出土文字雷同,能夠辨識 但是,學者們仍然一致認為 這確實是人類史上最早的字母 在這,你能看到一古體文字表 他告訴我們現今我們已解碼的古文字 從最上面的字母A (ālep) 開始 中間B (bêt),然後依序下去 現在,在非洲學設計的學生 都需閱讀的巨作,像安塔迪奧普 (Cheikh Anta Diop) 塞內加爾的安塔迪奧普 (Cheikh Anta Diop) 他在埃及的半成品 便正因為這個發現而被保存著 最後這段文字是來自於牙買加的偉大領導人 馬科斯·加維 和迦納的阿肯族人的 阿丁克拉文字 "Sankofa" 他鼓勵我們回顧過去的歷史起源與傳統文化 洞見古今,以古為鑑, 為我們與後代子孫的將來建立良好基礎 同時,也該是非洲的設計家們 停止只注重表象的時候了! 他們停留在表象藝術的時間已經太久了 而他們所要尋找的 其實一直都在他們眼前 藏在歷史文化與古文物背後! 謝謝 (掌聲)