Sustainability and material innovation fuel the Ibuju Collection by Fango

The Amazon rainforest, the world’s colossal green lungs and home to innumerable species of flora and fauna, has long been an unrivalled haven of biodiversity. This magnificent provenance of life that reigns over South America scrambles for its own sustenance today. Destructive human practices of indiscriminate lodging, a major problem that the forest faces, is the origin of the new furniture collection by Columbian design studio Fango. The studio evolves the Ibuju Collection by crafting furniture designs from Yaré, fibres commonly called vine located in the Colombian Amazon. “This process began when I met the material, I thought it was rattán or mimbre but when I realised it was a fibre from Colombia I decided to start making an investigation,” says Francisco Jaramillo, creative director at Fango.

By 2020, 60% of the total deforestation that affected Colombia was concentrated in the Amazon region with one of the greatest issues being the use of native woods. When Jaramillo discovered the impact of the Amazon, Ibuju came to him as a collection of furniture that instead of being made of wood uses Yaré to accentuate the weight of the crisis. Building on the idea of a ‘primitive’ object – a piece of wooden furniture built from logs – while spotlighting the detriments of cutting down trees, the designs encourage taking advantage of renewable materials such as ‘yaré’. The collection made out of this natural fibre reimagines the design and the manufacturing of native wooden pieces with material innovation and sustainability. “I think the collection invites us to think with new materials, not only with deforestation but also to understand what kind of other species could disappear in this process,” shares Jaramillo.

This fibre which is extracted by indigenous communities in the south of Colombia grows attached to trees and has been used by local communities for the development of handicrafts. As the project progressed, Francisco Jaramaillo worked in collaboration with a group of weavers, translating the aesthetics and the geometry of furniture made from wooden blocks in a primitive way in a bench, a stool and a table design shaped from ‘yaré’. “I first tried to understand the material and its context, so when I saw it was related to the jungle I decided to use this shape of furniture made locally,” says the Columbian furniture designer. “Then I wanted to create these cylindrical shapes which can fit fine with the material,” he adds.

Fango represents origin and culture. The Colombian studio arises from traditional cultures and human behaviour to create sustainable designs that establish a dialogue between the artisanal and technological aspects; and surely the relationship between man - context - object. “Designing is a synonym of telling stories through objects,” says Jaramillo who is inspired by people and products that have or had meaning in their life and interprets them in the present preserving that soul that is reminiscent of the past times. ‘Yaré’ is just one example of the great biodiversity that Colombia has to offer. The collection invites people to get to know uncharted local materials alongside getting to know better about the community. The Ibuju collection is another step in the journey of Fango to explore the continent brimming with design and possibilities and learning more about new materials and their context.