Growing Into the Urge to Create

Two prototypes for Khosi Leteba’s Bodulo bench, created in collaboration with Wiid Design

Khosi Leteba wants to make you feel something. After claiming one of four winning spots at Clout Designers’ Industry Days pitch sessions at 100% Design South Africa, he founded Bupa Studios to do just that

TEXT MODUPE OLORUNTOBA PHOTOGRAPH JUSTIN PATRICK

hile Bodulo, Khosi

WLeteba’s winning collection at Clout Designers’ Industry Days pitch sessions at 100% Design South Africa 2019 was inspired by his Sotho heritage, his multidisciplinary collectible furniture studio is named for it. “Bupa [Bopa] is a seSotho word that means to create, mould and give form. One of the ancient materials used in Africa is clay, which is flexible to mould… Bupa Studios embodies flexibility throughout creation,” says Khosi.

His pursuit of an emotional experience for the user bathes his stylish, thoughtful, contemporary designs in a nostalgic light. “We achieve what we believe by making beautifully designed, simple-to-use products that will always be part of your life.”

As a child, Khosi was drawn to art and design. “My brother Bokang Masilo introduced me to the arts. I remember back in the early 2000s, when we were both in primary school, he and his friend Macduff had windbreakers… He drew a wolf on the back of his and his friend had a panther. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen.”

Inspired to emulate his sibling, Khosi began teaching himself to draw in secret, later adding clothing and sneaker designs to his budding portfolio in high school.

Eventually, drawing wasn’t enough — Khosi wanted to make things. “Growing up in a township and not coming from a really well-off family, and always seeing other kids dressed up nicely … I was seeing potential in other design brands, maybe a Nike sneaker, and would think ‘If they could have just done this here, it would be better’. I always looked at buildings, objects and clothes and imagined how they could be improved.”

The urge to create and iterate only grew, leading him to interior design studies in Durban, and then to Clout/SA’s door. His Clout Designers’ Industry Days win was followed by enrolment in its business development programme, designed to set emerging talent up for commercial success.

Next came the task of bringing his winning cork bench design to life in collaboration with Laurie Wiid van Heerden, the multiaward-winning Cape Town designer who’s known for his collectible furniture design pieces made out of cork. Clout/SA helped fund the production and its director, Tracy Lee Lynch, facilitated the collaboration.

Following celebratory features for the finished product in VISI at home and Dezeen abroad, Khosi attracted a new collaborator very close to home: Aranda textiles, a leading supplier of the traditional Basotho blankets he grew up with.

Khosi has shown work at the Spier Art Trust’s Right Here Right Now exhibition in Cape Town, at Johannesburg’s Constitution Hill, and at House & Garden’s CUSP exhibition of collectible, functional South African art. Now, he’s joined the team at Plantr, a company that offers bespoke architectural contemporary planters and other home features. Next, Khosi wants to show his work “everywhere”, collaborating with his heroes along the way and gradually unpacking a methodology for developing distinct subcategories of African design. O

‘Through the programme, I learned about the business of design — manufacturing, logistics and so much more… That’s more important than anything if your mission is to liberate creatives because it allows them to learn to fish for themselves’