Her name is Thandiwe Muriu and she is a self-taught photographer from Kenya who discovered the art of photography as a teenager. Her surreal creations made their debut in Italy and the eyewear industry thanks to the 2023 MIDO communication campaign, Frames - The Eyewear State of the Art, and now make another appearance in next year's Lavazza calendar, More than us.
Frames
The MIDO Frames campaign - by Max Galli in collaboration with the Mixer Group - is a true intercultural and inclusive manifesto, based on fusions and colour that provide an unusual setting for the hero product: glasses and the entire eyewear world, which each time become metaphors of style and personality. The four subjects on which the campaign is based all embody the MIDO philosophy: contemporaneity, culture, fashion and beauty.
The campaign is accompanied by the claim “The Eyewear State of the Art”, which reaffirms MIDO’s role as an industry leader, a place where it is possible to witness the present and future of eyewear, thanks to the participation of the entire global industry.
This year, Frames won 1st prize in Mediastar Stampa + Special Star for Art Direction in the "press" category.
The works of Muriu
The artistic project of Muriu takes us on a colourful journey of reflection into the world of women living in modern-day Africa. In the designs of garments inspired by traditional Ankara wax-print fabric, the protagonists fade into the background. The fantasies are completed with hand-made accessories, made from reinvented objects of everyday life in Kenya (in the Frames campaign, these were surreal "glasses"). Each work is accompanied by African proverbs, acknowledging how tradition permeates and molds the identity of contemporary Africa.
The 2024 Lavazza calendar
The Lavazza calendar has been created as a group project involving not only Muriu, but also Daniel Obasi (Nigeria) and Aart Verrips (South Africa), under the creative direction of the Armando Testa Agency. The artistic project puts Africa centre-stage, as the homeland of the coffee bean (in the region of Kafa, Ethiopia) and some sustainable development projects by the non-profit Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation. This Foundation was launched in 2004 and today has 33 projects in 3 continents. Africa is also celebrated as a harmonious land, full of energy, experimentation, looking toward the future thanks to its extraordinary cultural vitality and the different communities that live there.
More than Us
The calendar describes and promotes the concept of partnership in all its nuances, starting from the ability to open up towards others - a clear reference to the 2023 Lavazza calendar Yes, We're Open - in order to move beyond, to explore the beauty of collaboration, fusion, joining together in mutual respect to create something grander: More than Us.
Each photographer captured four images, taking inspiration from sustainable development projects of the Lavazza Foundation and celebrating the collective commitment to the four Objectives of Sustainable Development within the 2023 Agenda of the United Nations, which are seen as priorities for the group: Goal 5 Gender Equality, Goal 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth, Goal 12 Responsible Consumption and Production, and Goal 13 Climate Action. These are pursued within the collaborative spirit promoted by Goal 17, Partnerships for the Goals.
The three ambassadors
The messages driving the project are further echoed in the engagement of three ambassadors, individuals strongly involved and committed to social projects who believe in the idea of collaboration as represented in More than Us: the Somalian model, author and actress Waris Dirie, who has participated for years in the fight against female genital mutilation; the Nobel prize-winner Denis Mukwege, world-renowned gynaecological surgeon and founder of the Panzi Hospital of Bakavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with whom the Fondazione Lavazza collaborates; South African activist Zulaikha Patel, who has brought media attention to the problem of racism in post-apartheid South Africa and recipient of the Young Activist Summit 2022 title.
Twenty years of the Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation
The More than Us concept will accompany Lavazza through 2024 as the leitmotif of initiatives celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation. The calendar acts as a preview of this anniversary, by providing a visual interpretation of the Foundation's projects as seen by the photographers.