Black patent leather shoes and wide-leg pants stand on a deep red carpet, conveying a sense of elegance and sophistication.

Floodlight

Resume

Year

2026

Client

RX Africa

Project

Curated Exhibition

Credits

Curatorial Direction Garreth van Niekerk Alan Hayward Spatial Lighting Design Martin Döller / One to One Collaborators Fabric Bank Featured Designers Ananta Design Studio Bofred Joe Paine Luminaire d’Afrique Mash.T Design Studio Mema Designs Modern Gesture MOS Products TheUrbanative One to One by Martin Döller

A showcase devoted not simply to lighting objects, but to light itself. Created for Decorex Cape Town 2026, FloodLight brought together some of the country’s most compelling lighting designers within an immersive exhibition exploring light as material, atmosphere and emotional infrastructure. Developed by Beheld in collaboration with spatial lighting designer Martin Döller, the feature moved lighting away from the conventional product display and into a theatrical environment shaped by shadow, rhythm, reflection and changing intensity. The result was both an exhibition of contemporary South African lighting and an experience of what light can do: soften architecture, alter perception, create intimacy and transform the way a space is felt.

Input

To create a new feature placing South African lighting design at the centre of the Decorex experience, while translating the 2026 theme, The Soft Life, into a powerful spatial installation. Our curatorial approach began with the idea of light as soft power. Beyond its practical function, light shapes mood, attention, emotion and wellbeing. It can reveal or conceal, energise or calm, and completely change our relationship with a room. Working with Martin Döller, we selected a cross-section of established and emerging studios whose work demonstrated the strength and variety of contemporary lighting design. The collection moved between technical precision, sculptural experimentation, material innovation and craft traditions carried into new forms.

Output

An immersive lighting exhibition presenting work by ten South African designers and studios, each offering a different approach to material, form and illumination. The selected pieces ranged from Joe Paine’s brutalist MAXIMA Standing Lamp and Bofred’s sand-cast aluminium Martini Floor Lamp to Mema Designs’ intricately folded aluminium mesh and MOS Products’ experiments with geometry and ambient light. Several works drew directly from African material and cultural languages. TheUrbanative’s Ayanda Pendant referenced the silhouettes of the Zulu isidwaba and isicholo. Modern Gesture translated the form of an African necklace into a layered timber pendant. Ananta Design Studio combined steel, textiles and beaded threads, while Luminaire d’Afrique brought together recycled Ngwenya glass, ilala palm weaving, telephone wire and beadwork. At the centre of the exhibition, Martin Döller’s solid-bronze Amphora lighting system represented two decades of thinking about light, modularity and atmosphere. Together, the works demonstrated that South African lighting design is not a single aesthetic, but a field of technical, cultural and material intelligence. FloodLight created a dedicated platform through which these practices could be encountered collectively, while making a wider case for light as one of the most powerful materials available to designers.

Two men in dress shirts stand against a striped background. One adjusts his tie, both look thoughtful and focused, conveying a professional tone.

A young man in a white shirt and tie sits on the floor, surrounded by scattered papers. He looks down at a document, appearing focused and pensive.

Young man in a formal outfit with a striped shirt, grey tie, and black coat. The tone is serious and professional, emphasizing subdued elegance.

'At the heart of the immersive display – developed as a collaboration between curators Alan Hayward & Garreth van Niekerk and spatial lighting designer Martin Döller – was the idea of light as soft power: not simply as a function, but as atmosphere, emotion and a tool for wellbeing.'

Gina Dionisio