Laura Noriega is one of the 22 designers featured in Have a Seat: Mexican Chair Design Today. This exhibition is included with general admission, which is free for members and everyone 18 and younger. You can see her chairs (and sit on them!) through November 3.
Clara Ricciardi: I would love for you to tell us how did you came up with the design idea for the chair Your Skin?
Laura Noriega: In 2012 I was doing research in Kyoto, Japan. I won a residency scholarship to do research under the theme of modern design and artisanal techniques. I had already been working in Mexico for several years with artisan communities because it is what I am most passionate about: the materials, the processes and above all, the local traditional techniques.
In Japan, I explored all the crafts I could: bamboo weaving, porcelain, ceramics, cabinetmaking, metalworking. But from the moment I arrived I was very curious about the manufacture of tatami mats, because of their similarity to Mexican petate mats; phonetically, because they both have three syllables: ta-ta-mi, pe-ta-te, and, above all, because of the nostalgia of seeing how a culture like Japan managed to maintain its tradition of doing their activities on the floor.
As a child, I used to go to some communities and sit on the mat placed on the floor, where they were making tortillas. I remember the aroma of the spaces that were contained within the mat, which had this palm scent, very fresh. And in Japan it is the same (olfactory experience) when you arrive at a traditional space where they have tatami mats. The tatami mats are made of a fiber called igusa, which I didn’t know about. That is because people only know these mats as tatamis. So, I ventured to investigate that. I went to the south of Japan; I saw the plantations of this fiber.
The fiber is made of thin tubes, it looked very similar to straw tubes. They are not flat, what happens is that when they are woven, the fiber flattens out. And all this made me reflect on the sensory memory that we all have, that objects and materials evoke in us and that transport us to places. In my desire to take a little piece of Japan with me back to Mexico, I decided to make an object that would fulfill the same function as the tatami, but in a more contemporary way. I decided to make something to sit on, a chair. That is how this idea of making this chair began to take form.
The objective was to make a low chair that could be visually very light, that would rise almost flying from the ground. I was thinking about how in all cultures there are textures, and there are textiles and materials and aromas that transport us to that nostalgia with which we want to fill our spaces, that make us feel protected or at home. The chair was called Your Skin, so that it would be easy to exchange this outer “skin”.
I made the first prototype while in Japan, working with cabinetmakers for the wooden structures. My first prototype was made with tatami. I brought it with me to Mexico. The seat that the museum currently has was woven by hand, on pedal looms in Oaxaca. In Mexico I developed a catalog of different textures for the chair. We currently manufacture this chair with leather, cotton, and synthetic fabric. The goal was to have a seat with all the possible personalities that can occur anywhere in the world.
And another little detail about the chair that few people know: When you sit down on it, you can reach to touch its edges, it has a concavity, the same way as when you break the igusa, it has a concavity. It is the same thing that happens with the palm. You see these thin loose tubes, on the palm or on the igusa, but when you join them, you structure them like in a braid, generating this fabric. It is a bit of a reclaim as well. That detail in the design is in honor of the natural fibers.
CR: Thank you very much for your answer. I love thinking about the petate mat, thinking that you are integrating Mexican culture into this chair.
LN: Now, this year, my goal is to make a chair using petate. I was looking for artisans who would weave the palm fibers in a thinner and cooler way so I could shape the petate before the fiber breaks, because when the fiber dries it hardens and breaks.
CR: Are your artisans who make petates located in Oaxaca, or are they in another area of Mexico that still make petates?
LN: Yes, there are petate artisans in Oaxaca, in Chiapas, and in Michoacán. The ones I have been visiting to develop this seat are in Michoacán, due to the proximity to Guadalajara (where the artist lives), I have easier access to them.
Check out the Have a Seat Exhibition Guide to learn more about the designers in the show.
