Event information
Established in 2020, Always Welcome is a multi-brand cooperative retailer of Southern Africa’s leading designer-maker studios with a flagship store in Johannesburg and an extensive online marketplace.
This is a South African design cooperative for owner-run design studios that create furniture, homeware and lifestyle objects. The space supports 24 designers at present, including those who have won awards. Always Welcome’s unique diversity of designers, celebrated artistic voices, and creative campaigning is making the space an incubator of new ideas that architects, interior designers and cultural critics look to for inspiration, and where the public can experience a curated collection of the best in Southern African design.
Always Welcome looks forward to shoppers experiencing the craftsmanship and quality of Southern African design, and becoming as passionate about supporting these inspirational, and highly collectable, design studios as they are.
Always Welcome currently showcases the work of 24 designers, some of whom have won awards for their work, including:
Dokter and Misses
Established in 2007 by industrial designer Adriaan Hugo and graphic designer Katy Taplin, the proudly ‘Made in Johannesburg’ Dokter and Misses studio is an award-winning multi-disciplinary product design company whose highly collectable pieces have become icons of the local contemporary design language and exhibited globally.
Gone Rural
Gone Rural was founded by Jenny Thorne in 1992 to create economic empowerment for rural women in Eswatini through basket weaving. Offering home based-work to over 700 rural artisans, they have been celebrated internationally since inception for their unique tableware and woven decor products.
Goodman Gallery
Goodman Gallery is an international contemporary art gallery that has held the reputation of a pre-eminent art gallery on the African continent since 1966. With locations in Johannesburg, Cape Town and London, the gallery represents artists whose work confronts entrenched power structures and inspires social change.
