South African billionaire Johann Rupert's daughter Hanneli now runs his Venice craft biennial

Hanneli Rupert, the 41-year-old daughter of Richemont chairman Johann Rupert, opens this year's Homo Faber Biennial in Venice on Sept. 1, running a month-long exhibition of more than 700 handmade objects drawn from 70 countries.

The event takes place among the cloisters and gardens of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, and organisers expect 2,000 visitors a day. It has become the third recurring biennale in a city that already hosts the world's most established gatherings for art and architecture, and the Financial Times reported this week that it has taken on the character of a Davos for craft, with museums bringing patron groups, department store buyers scouting for talent, and interior designers arriving with clients in tow.

Rupert took over the platform in 2022. The changes since then are structural rather than cosmetic. She introduced a curatorial framework built around a single theme, appointed a guest artistic director to interpret it, and extended the run from a fortnight to a full month.

The 2024 edition was directed by the filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, who threaded visitors along a coloured path past papier-mâché cypress trees standing 12 metres tall. This year's theme, An Island of Light, has been handed to the British artist and scenographer Es Devlin, who has built her reputation on monumental public installations and stage design and holds three Olivier awards, a Tony, an Ivor Novello and a CBE. Her interpretation runs to 15 installations that play with reflection, refraction and shadow.

The platform Rupert inherited was her father's idea. Johann Rupert set up the non-profit Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship in 2016 after the closure of G Lorenzi, a Milanese shop that had sold cutlery, razors and other bladed goods to a narrow clientele since 1929. He wanted a mechanism that would put small family workshops and little-known makers in front of a global audience before they disappeared. Homo Faber became the foundation's cultural arm, combining an online directory, an education programme and the Venice exhibition, which launched in 2018.

Rupert has been explicit that the biennial is not a Richemont showcase, and she describes it as a collaborative venture rather than a corporate one. Hermès and Chanel, both competitors of her father's group, were early supporters. The emphasis has stayed on individual practitioners rather than the large luxury houses.

She came to the role through a business of her own rather than through the family company. Born in Johannesburg and raised in Stellenbosch, she studied fine art at Chelsea and Wimbledon, spent time in Florence, and returned to South Africa in 2008 facing a choice between continuing as a painter and moving into a wider world of makers. She spent two years researching local artisans and opened Merchants on Long in 2010, a Cape Town concept store devoted to African design. She also founded Okapi, a luxury accessories line built on South African materials and techniques, and has worked with craft enterprises including the Tintsaba Master Weavers, whose sisal bowls are made by women across Eswatini.

Her father runs a considerably larger operation. Richemont, which he founded in 1988, owns Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Montblanc, IWC Schaffhausen and Vacheron Constantin among others, and reported revenue of €21.4 billion in its 2025 financial year. The family holds the group through Compagnie Financière Rupert, which owned 6,418,850 Richemont A shares and 537,582,089 B shares at March 31, translating into roughly 10% of the equity and 51% of the voting power. Forbes ranks Johann Rupert as the wealthiest person in South Africa.

The commercial argument for Homo Faber rests on what inclusion does for individual makers. The Financial Times cited the case of the South African metalworker Heinrich Filter, whose appearance in the online directory led the Cape Town gallery Ebony/Curated to commission candlesticks and a table from him, all of which sold within two months. Rupert has argued that in a field this narrow, one commission can carry a maker for a year.

The directory keeps expanding. More than 200 makers from across the United States were added in May. The foundation's fellowship programme funds 30 educational placements a year, pairing apprentices with master craftspeople to move skills to a younger generation.

Rupert has tied the case for the whole enterprise to what is happening in digital culture. Asked why Venice suits it, she said it is "a city that could never be created by AI", describing it as the product of accumulated imperfection and arguing that people are drawn to exactly that. The exhibition runs until Sept. 30.