Playful design that uplifts

Viveka and Rucita Vassen are a sister design duo and founders of Ananta Design Studio.

Their multidisciplinary studio merges design, craft and art, reimagining traditional craft techniques from beadwork and wire work to design collectable décor and furniture pieces that are playfully functional. Their creations are filled with colour, pattern, joy, celebration and community.

The sisters use their design skills for social impact. They work with local communities to produce their pieces, creating empowerment, specially for women artisans. 

The duo was previously in the fashion and graphic design industry and felt the need to jump out of the boxes to further explore their creativity. They launched Ananta two years ago.

What is the meaning of Ananta and how does it translate into your design ethos?

Ananta is a Sanskrit word meaning “infinite” and “endless”. It reflects how we feel about creativity, design and all the exciting possibilities that lie ahead of us. It speaks to the circular concept of creation — no beginning or end. It also makes us conscious of our design process, ensuring we create collectable pieces that are loved for a lifetime and beyond. We were drawn to the familial sound and depth of the ancient Sanskrit language in naming our brand and pieces, for us the perfect way to honour our Indian heritage in all that we create with our African makers and craft communities. 

Your use of colour is inviting and uplifting. Is  that the intention? 

Totally. We use colour to bring joy and playfulness into spaces. We love how fun and bright colours create an emotive response. They get you excited, bring smiles, amazement and a sense of wonder. Through colour we’ve created a brand that communicates happiness, joy and celebration. 

Talk us through your design techniques, some of which are delightfully playful, and why it was important to reimagine heritage crafts? 

Our collection includes beadwork, wire art, crochet and felting. We push traditional crafts beyond the norm to create playful statement pieces. Africa has such a rich culture and tradition of crafts and we feel the need to evolve and elevate them into modern pieces. By creating functional pieces, we allow people to interact with them in their spaces in a deeper, more meaningful way. This also gets younger generations excited about their heritage crafts and ensures the skills and stories from generations before continue to be shared with generations ahead.

Which communities do you work with? 

We are working with Monkeybiz, an NPO that employs bead artists in Khayelitsha, giving women an opportunity to work from their homes while taking care of their families and being the breadwinners. Our crochet work is done by Re.Bag.Re.Use, an environmental and women empowerment initiative that takes waste materials and crochets them into beautiful pieces, contributing to a cleaner planet. Our wire artist is Rainbow Artz, which has a very distinctive looped wire technique we use on our mirror frames.

We are always looking for more craft communities to work with to expand our collection and further our impact in the craft sector.

What materials do you specialise in and where do you source them? 

At the moment we are mostly using glass beads, telephone wire and audio and videocassette tapes. Our crafters have been working with the materials for many years  so they source them. We are planning to incorporate a wider variety of materials into our pieces, which we are excited about.

How would you characterise your relationship with design? 

We have a very strong relationship with design. It is completely ingrained in us. It is who we are, how we express ourselves and how we live. In our work we have an experimental approach and are inspired to use design as a tool for change and upliftment. 

What is the greatest problem in your world that has been solved by design? 

Pinterest. It’s solved all our visual design research and inspiration problems. We grew up in the age of print so being able to organise our endless ideas on a platform is a dream.

What are some of your favourite design pieces? 

We’re obsessed with our Annaci drinks unit and Bimba chair, which we launched at Decorex last month. 

We had so much fun designing our pineapple-inspired drinks unit, which is probably our most playful piece to date, with its pineapple crown and beaded fringe details. It’s a real conversation and party starter.

Our Bimba chair is crocheted from upcycled VHS cassette tapes with flower petal detailing, combined with polished steel legs. The VHS tapes have the most wonderful lustre and reflective quality. It’s a modern piece with strong lines yet at the same time the VHS tapes bring an element of nostalgia and rewinds us back to life before digital.

Your proudest achievements so far? 

We have had many exciting, proud and surreal moments. Our first big milestone was being selected as a Design Indaba Emerging Creative of 2023. This was followed by our pieces making their way to the Brooklyn Museum’s Africa Fashion Pop-Up, curated by Alara Lagos. Having our pieces in New York City was a really exciting moment for us.

This year we made it to the final top 12 cultural and creative entrepreneurs for the Création Africa mentorship and incubation programme sponsored by the French ministry for Europe and foreign affairs. It’s an honour being part of the Création Africa programme and we’re excited for the growth and new possibilities this will bring for Ananta.

Wanted