African art and design celebrated at the Xigera Safari Lodge
Located in Botswana’s impressive Okavango Delta and immersed in nature, the Xigera Safari Lodge features a remarkable collection of African art and design pieces curated by South African gallery Southern Guild
The patio at the Xigera Safari Lodge, with custom-designed lounge chairs by designer Porky Hefer. Created in collaboration with South African design gallery Southern Guild, the Lodge’s spaces offer the largest collection of African art and design to date
South African art and design gallery Southern Guild collaborated with the Tollman family (owners of the Red Carnation Hotel Collection) to create a celebration of art and design from across the continent at the Xigera Safari Lodge, immersed in the nature of Botswana’s Okavango Delta.
African art and design take the spotlight at Xigera Safari Lodge
Two years in the making, the project features an impressive collection of African design by the likes of Porky Hefer, Atang Tshikare, Zizipho Poswa and many more, with furniture, art and accessories carefully selected by Toni Tollman in collaboration with Southern Guild to decorate the spaces designed by architect Anton de Kock. Site-specific pieces were commissioned by the gallery to create the Lodge’s immersive atmosphere, and almost every object was created especially for the lodge by local artisans, from furniture and ceramics to textiles and tableware.
The Xigera Safari Lodge is 95% solar powered and boasts 12 guest suites immersed in the surrounding grassland of the Okavango Delta, with spaces merging indoor and outdoor experiences. Features like a Baobab-shaped tree house (inspired by a painting by South African master landscape painter Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef) add to the special nature of the stay at the Lodge, with further outdoor spaces including a waterside lounge area, a totemic fire-pit sculpture by artist-blacksmith Conrad Hicks and Porky Hefer-designed loungers and woven ‘nests’.
Created as ‘a living gallery of African talent’, with 76 of the most celebrated creatives featured throughout the spaces, it forms the most ambitious display of African design in the continent to date.
