Akuaba chair design and reference

Huren Marsh was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1951 and moved to the UK in 1967. He designed the Akuaba chair in 1985, while studying furniture and product design at Kingston University in Greater London. In opposition to the general trend for Memphis and Post-Modern design of the time, Marsh instead took inspiration from French Art Deco, European Cubism and the African objects on display in the Museum of Mankind (now part of the British Museum) and the publication African Sculpture Speaks by Ladislas Segy (1952). The name of the chair suggests that its design derives from the akua’ba figures of Ghana. These are carved wooden fertility figures that are carried by women hoping to conceive. They

Design · London. In and collage on paper. By Marsh, Huren. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.