Hats off to the Toffie Popular Culture Festival

The Toffie Popular Culture Festival is fast approaching and if you havent heard about it you really should have. Toffie is going to be bringing you the best of popular culture which as they put it is, “Everything that is the Shit” from international speakers about Fashion, Sneakers, Music and magazines to awesome practical workshops where you can get down and dirty and learn about everything from circuit bending, screen printing, and vinyl toy design. There are also awesome exhibitions by leading graphic designers, as well as world champion BMX and skateboard riders, and they’re even throwing in a mad dress up party (the theme is Disease, “think Bi-Polar, Yellow Fever”) with Van Coke Kartel, Ooorlog Frankenstein, Argentinian electro rockers Manta Raya amd another international surprise act and as if that wasn’t enough there are awesome stores selling limited edition merchandise from the likes of 2Bop, Toitoy, Toffie, David West, Familia Skateboards and Richard de Jager PWHOA.

Okay well that little rant is over and as you can see I’m pretty excited about this festival, its awesome to see a festival emerging that is moving away from the mainstream, Toffie appears to be bringing something new to Cape Town, something exciting and different. The mere fact that you can get involved in practical workshops where you can actively engage speakers and learn from them is truely amazing. The festival is also going to be extremely accessible to all with tickets priced at R680 which is extremely well priced (Design Indaba is R1130 for the Simulcast and conference tickets were around R7000).

Over the next few weeks we will be doing a post on each of the main speakers in preparation for the Festival but here a brief overview of what to expect from the festival. Also we will be posting live from the event and doing a post event round up for those of you who aren’t in Cape Town or weren’t able to attend.

Speakers (Please not these are brief overviews will be doing some in depth posts on speakers in the following weeks)

• Sean Taylor – Vice President of Creative for MTV International
• Shawn Carboy – Sneaker designer at Nike SB in Portland, USA
• Fly on the Wall – Director Bryan little and producer Filipa Domingues have produced numerous short films, music videos and recently the Fokofpolisiekar movie, “Forgive them for they know not what they do”
• Kim Jones – British menswear designer who has developed a cult following for his refined, casual clothing
• Siggi Eggertson – Siggi is an Illustrator. In 2006 Print magazine selected him as one of the 20 brightest design stars in the world under 30.
• Jorge Alderete – Has worked as an independent animator for MTV Latin America and Japan, Co -Owner of independent record label Isotonic Records, and a whole lot more..
• Richard Hart - Will be presenting his collaboration project “Them and Us’. Founder of Disturbance studio in Durban, and a whole lot more…
• Peet Pienaar – Peet is the Creative Director at The President, a South African design and pubishing agency with offices in Cape Town and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a whole lot more….
• Wynand Myburgh – Has been involved in the SA music industry since ’99. His two main projects are Fokofpolisiekar and Van Coke Cartel, and whole lot more…

Workshops

• Vinyl toy worshop by Kronk (R300 incl. a Munny)
• Circuit bending workshop by Manta Raya (R300 incl. an electronic instrument)
• Magazine Design workshop by Peet Pienaar (R50 incl. a magazine)
• T-Shirt silkscreen workshop (R200 incl. a t-shirt)

Overview

Dates: 26-28 March 2010
Cost: R680, bookings at toffie@thepresident.co.za
Venue: Rondebosch Boys High School, Cape Town
Registration for the event is on Friday 26 March 16:00 – 20:00, Rondebosch Boys High, Memorial Hall
Info: www.toffie.co.za or 021 462 6092/9

Here a couple of pics from the Toffie Blog showing some of the artists work