Fernando Laposse

Fernando Laposse is a London-based, Mexican designer; he trained at Central Saint Martins as a product designer. He specialises in transforming humble natural materials into refined design pieces. He has worked extensively with overlooked plant fibres such as sisal, loofah, and corn leaves. His works are the result of extensive research, which culminates in objects of ‘endemic design,’ where materials and their historical and cultural ties to a particular location and its people take center stage. He often works with indigenous communities in his native Mexico, to create local employment opportunities and raise awareness about the challenges they face in a globalized world.  

Laposse’s projects are informative and educational and touch on topics such as sustainability, the loss of biodiversity, community dissolution, migration and the negative impacts of global trade in local agriculture and food culture. He does so by documenting the issues and announcing possible resolutions through the transformative power of design. The products he creates are innovative, beautiful and often provocative in a humorous way. Laposse’s projects have been exhibited in the Triennale di Milano, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, The Design Museum in London, Victoria and Albert, Design Miami, the World Economic Forum to name a few. His work is held in the permanent collections of the V&A and SF Moma.  

At Future Heritage

For Future Heritage, Laposse made a new version of his loofah room divider, combining loofah in a textured aluminium frame. He also made two panels of Totomoxtle, a veneer made with corn husks endemic to Mexico and lastly a round hairy table using agave fibres. 

Current work

Laposse was working on a series of Totomoxtle panels for the Earth Optimism Summit organised by the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. He is also creating a new pattern design of Totomoxtle which will be commercially available soon and will also be acquired by the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. During the quarantine he Laposse has been working in the village where he grows the maize used in Totomoxtle, building a new community workshop and developing new production processes for the months to come.