fernando laposse
Fernando doing marquetry, courtesy of the designer.
Fernando Laposse is a Mexican designer specializing in transforming humble natural materials into refined design pieces. He has worked extensively with overlooked plant fibers indigenous to Mexico such as sisal, loofah, and corn leaves.
His works are the result of periods of research that are developed into objects where materials and their historical and cultural ties to a particular location and its people take center stage. He often works with local indigenous communities and addresses topics such as the environmental crisis, the loss of biodiversity and migration through the transformative power of Design.
LUCIJA ŠUTEJ: Can you tell me about your early influences and what drew you towards Design?
FERNANDO LAPOSSE: My dad studied architecture, but my dad's family were bakers for generations. He practiced some architecture, but most of his life has been around baking and cooking. There's a crossover with agriculture because it was very important to have full control of where the bakery ingredients came from. They had their own chicken farm and access to wheat. This philosophy definitely had a big influence on my upbringing and my interest in agriculture.
And on the other hand, my mom was an artist. She had some exhibitions as a painter and was really good at watercoloring, but where she excelled was teaching art, especially for children. Her classes focused on observing nature. We would make paper with flowers, press flowers, or draw leaves. There was a big encouragement from my parents since childhood to understand nature, observe it, and understand patience when dealing with natural cycles. These are still very present in my practice.
Fernando and his sister Sofia with Delfino in Tonahuixtla in 1995, image courtesy of the designer.
LŠ: What other interactions with nature have you fostered since childhood?
FL: My family and I did some camping and fishing. The town where I still work today was actually my summer camp. I went there first when I was six years old and every summer until I moved to Europe when I was around 16 (laugh). That's where I learned the most about nature, farming, and indigenous agriculture. It was not what one might call traditional camping but the idea was to join communities in a permanent state of camping.
LŠ: I also read that your grandfather instilled in you a love of objects through his collecting. How has your understanding of our relationships with objects developed under his guidance?
FL: So, my grandfather on my mother's side was also an architect. He did much work in Mexico City, mostly modest housing projects. In the 50s and 60s, if you dug a few meters in central Mexico City, you were almost guaranteed to find pre-Hispanic artifacts. Back then, the laws were less regulated, so he got to keep much of what he found. He studied it, collected it, and traded it with others. For example, artist Diego Rivera was also a big collector of artifacts and had an extensive archive. Some pieces went to my mom, and I still have many. We donated some to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia (Anthropology Museum). The museum also has a practice where they have so many objects that they make one an official custodian of this natural heritage. They give you guidelines on how to keep and preserve artifacts. Growing up in a city with this insane heritage of culture, where you literally dig a hole and peel through layers of history, was always present in my family and upbringing. This curiosity for discovery was always encouraged from a young age.
LŠ: Understanding materials and sustainability is central to your design practice. Were those the teachings you gathered from Central Saint Martins?
FL: In terms of sustainability, unfortunately, no (laugh). When I studied at Saint Martins around 2008, sustainability was just a box you could tick for an extra point (laugh). There was no real focus on it - a period during the financial crisis and the dawn of smart objects. Everyone was dreaming about the possibilities of smartwatches and technology saving everyone. Hardware containing this technology was all made of plastic, designed to be sleek and trendy.
What Saint Martins did teach us was to spot trends and articulate ideas in a concise manner. The foundation course was instrumental in my education. That's where I learned the most and polished my hand skills as a maker.
Given the climate of the time, with the financial crisis and no one hiring, I had to prepare for an eventual return to Mexico. Mexico doesn't have much industry, but it has a huge culture of craft and proximity to natural materials. My thinking was to adapt what I'd been taught to create a hybrid of Design, craft, and natural materials, and sustainability has always been a natural path for me. My mom is a big hippie, so sodas were forbidden in our house, and we didn't play video games much (laugh). It was mostly about making your toys. I went to a Montessori school where we wrote with crayons or beeswax blocks. I don't approach sustainability from a calculating standpoint. For me, it's more of a philosophical and everyday practice. I'm naturally more attracted to natural materials and curious about their provenance.
LŠ: How do you see the role of natural materials in your design process, and how do you select and collect them for your projects?
FL: My first successful design project was during my foundation course at Saint Martins. We had an exercise to bring back material from our home country after the winter break. I brought back a loofah sponge, which is very common in Mexico for showering and washing dishes. That project created my first collection, the Lufa series, which I still have on my website 15 years later. It started my working methodology with one natural material not commonly used for designing products.
Lufa divider, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Lufa daybed, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Material detail, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Lufa series, lamp detail. Courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Lufa series, lamp. Image courtesy of the designer.
I like the challenge of being limited to one material because it forces you to be a proper designer. Design is about desirability, making something undesired into something desired. It's more interesting to start with something considered almost waste and try to dominate, understand, and create DIY manufacturing processes. Also, this approach came from the financial crisis when no one was hiring. You couldn't afford to pay a carpenter in London, so you had to find ways to self-produce with low cost and low technology (laugh). I love that constraint because it's the mother of creativity. Things took a dramatic turn with my corn veneer project, the Totomoxtle project. It focused more on storytelling and creating design objects with materials about more complex topics.
LŠ: How did you envision the Totomoxtle project, which aims to raise awareness, promote biodiversity, and support local communities?
FL: When I was 25, I had a quarter-life crisis in London (laugh). I decided to return to Mexico and applied for a residency in Oaxaca, one of the most indigenous states in Mexico. The residency was at a cultural center established by Francisco Toledo, a famous artist and activist.
At the time, activists focused on protecting heritage corn and trying to ban genetically modified seeds. I saw a lot of political art and activity, but I needed more focus on addressing the economic issues, so I started to focus on the challenges faced by farmers growing heirloom corn varieties. The outcome was Totomoxtle, a veneering material made with leaves of colorful corn varieties. This material created an added source of revenue for impoverished farmers and an incentive to continue their traditional agricultural practices. The project took on more significance when I revisited the town I used to visit as a child and saw the devastation caused by erosion and loss of native seeds. I saw an opportunity to merge agriculture and Design to help the community recover their land and soil fertility.
A decade later, the project has grown immensely and allows the community to live off it. We're seeing the beginnings of regeneration in the eroded mountains, which is an important metric for assessing a successful design project.
Totomoxtle legacy table detail, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Legacy table detail, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Totomoxtle lamp, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Lamp detail, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Corn Wall Transmutaciones, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Both photos courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Totomoxtle vase patterned.
LŠ: Your designs celebrate and emphasize traditional techniques. Do you consciously approach design projects via the lens of traditions and support them?
FL: It's a mixture of two things. Traditions become traditions because you convince enough people they're worth practicing. Craft is always evolving and changing. Many "traditional" crafts in Mexico were actually invented in the 20th or late 19th century, often through exposure to techniques from elsewhere. I have a personal rule not to work with artisans. Instead, I focus on how Design can potentialize other activities like traditional farming and indigenous culture by creating new crafts, materials, and processes. This allows for some social engineering, addressing issues like sexism in traditional craft practices.
By starting new projects and crafts, we can determine fair pay distribution, promote gender equality in tasks, and create circular systems and economies that run parallel to more established ones. This approach allows for longevity and the potential for projects to last several decades.
Courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Bull plough, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Eroded soil, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Hanging corn, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Both images courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Labelling selected seeds.
Courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
Lucy with harvest and colored leaves; courtesy of Fernando Laposse.
LŠ: I would love to hear more of your views on waste as a new material. It reminds me of inventor Bucky Fuller's philosophy of exploring the potential of waste as material.
FL: The concept of waste has been monopolized by a Western view, focusing on industrial waste and efficiency. This vision dominates environmental crisis rhetoric because it's the fastest way to sell new products - the silver bullet of greenwashing. I follow more of Victor Papanek's philosophy from “Design for the Real World." It's about looking at solutions for real people and places, diversifying who you design for. This approach involves asking questions, identifying problems, and having authentic dialogues with the people you're collaborating with before suggesting solutions.
In the indigenous communities I work with, waste isn't a concept. They don't see anything as waste. I've been trying to notbe inspired by existing designers who have mostly designed for a white urban reality. Instead, I focus on designing for Latin America within rural contexts and with indigenous people with different worldviews. It's been a huge learning curve, unlearning a lot of what I studied and relearning to operate in rural Mexico.
LŠ: For future projects, are you planning any architecture-related collaborations?
FL: I'm currently building my new studio as a self-built project. Coming to Mexico allowed me to start expanding the scale of my work. The furniture I create has become bigger, and the art installations have grown larger. Architecture will be a natural next step.
Tonahuixtla workshop, courtesy of Fernando Laposse.