DiepCity Art Director, Texture, shares how she built Diepsloot

On the heels of a successful 100 episodes of DiepCity, multi-award-winning designer Noluthando “Texture” Lobese is excited to take you through the essence of bringing the DiepCity world to life. 

Texture, a designer and Art Director of DiepCity, is renowned for her artistic and innovative sense. It has led her to showcase her design expertise on international stages such as:

• An Opera in Konzert Theatre Switzerland
• Salzburg Austria
• MacDowell Colony in New York
• Glimmerglass Opera festival New York 
• The floating stage in Austria

The world of DiepCity carries with it a strong history and a sentimental story. Texture took time to research the township of Diepsloot to understand its living conditions and the environment to the finest of detail. All props were sourced from Diepsloot to match the personalities and characters of the DiepCity storyline.

Texture aims to inspire the kids

“Documenting and archiving plays an important role in what we do as creators, designers and artists. I believe that by documenting and archiving our own work, we have a better chance of telling our stories genuinely and accurately; without them being fabricated or distorted by other parties who were not involved and did not share the emotions of the events at the time they occurred”, says Texture. “My goal is to inspire young kids. We do not have many production designers and set and costume designers in our country. I have been fortunate, firstly, that I had a mentor when I started at the Market Theatre in 2008, and secondly that I travel the world learning from diverse cultures and meeting like-minded and inspiring mentors. There is no reason why we cannot design our future,” she adds.

Texture’s creativity has made many South Africans feel heard and seen through the story that she has successfully portrayed. She does this through every piece of furniture and object that makes up the DiepCity set.