Interview: Manuel Raeder

Manuel Raeder is an interdisciplinary designer based in Berlin and the founder of Studio Manuel Raeder, publishing house BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE, and furniture label Muebles Manuel. The first is responsible for the identity and strategy of countless cultural institutions, the second has engaged in over 200 artist books, while the third is a sort of outlet for the first: objects and furniture that were originally designed for studio projects (e.g. collaborations with artists, workshops, and exhibitions) are produced for everyone to enjoy. One such item is the Adrián Chair, a plastic Monobloc adorned with a hand-woven seat. At a moment in which the convenience of mass production is contending with the extinction of traditional techniques, the design of the Adrián resolves two materials worlds into one poetic, ergonomic chair.

Who is Adrián?

Adrián Lòpez is the craftsman from Oaxaca who makes the chair. We met when my studio was invited to do an exhibition of our designs at the Centro de Diseño, which doesn’t acutally exist anymore. I had spent a lot of time in Mexico, I have family and a place there, so I knew the context very well. I proposed to move part of the studio to Oaxaca for two to three months, during which time we would use the local resources to build the exhibition, and design and make new objects in collaboration with local artisans.

What do they make?

They work with all kinds of techniques but they’re famous for their pottery and textiles. Oaxaca has the highest density of artisan craft in Latin America – this is important in order to understand the resistance there to mass-produced things, for example, the classic Monobloc chair. It’s cheap, it’s light, you can clean it easily, so it has entered the community there, and obviously it pushes the other chairs aside. This was the starting point for the whole project; not complaining about the situation but thinking about how to bring things back to the local. At the very beginning of our stay in Oaxaca, we spent a lot of time with different artisans, including Adrián. He usually makes baskets for collecting garlic, fruits or vegetables, and when I went to his house, he had a Monobloc chair in his kitchen, so I asked if he could make a mold of it using the same technique.

Could you describe Adrián’s technique?

First he gets the reeds from the river, then the leaves needs to dry, then he can fire them, and then he can start weaving. The process is very long. But it doesn’t ever have a deadline – we’ve been collaborating with him for 12 years now, and it just depends on the other things he has to do at the time. He also has animals and a piece of land, so he makes the chairs when he doesn’t have to go out into the fields, when there isn’t a harvest. This is either during the winter or the rainy season.

The whole family is involved. They all live together and sit to weave the chairs together. The technique is handed down centuries of generations in indigenous communities – it’s the same with traditional pottery or textiles. Naturally the main question was how to make a proposal that could also benefit the community and not just impose myself there as a European designer. The idea was that all the products designed for the exhibition could continue to be produced and sold locally or to tourists. It was never about: “This is my design”. That’s why we named all the objects after the people who made them instead.

The exhibition at the Centro de Diseño was called La letra E está por doquier (The Letter E is Everywhere). Does this have anything to do with Georges Perec’s novel, the one that doesn’t use the letter ‘E’?

Yes, I’d been a fan of his writing for many years. It had to do with that book but also with the fact that ‘E’ is the most used letter in written Spanish. We brought most of the books we’d designed over the previous ten years, and we still collaborate with lots of artists and galleries in Mexico. For example, BOM DIA published Hasta que los Cantos Broten (Until the Songs Spring) with the Mexican Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale.

But for our exhibition, we made posters with the title woven into big carpets called ‘Petates de Palma’, also made from palm leaves, which are normally used on the floor. These are what we hung around the city to announce the exhibition, instead of printing, let’s say, big plastic banners. They were all taken down the next day because the local police thought they were messages from Narcos, from drug traffickers, and it made the front cover of the local newspaper. It was kind of funny.

Bio:

Manuel Raeder is an interdisciplinary designer based in Berlin. He is the founder of Studio Manuel Raeder, publishing house BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE, and furniture label Muebles Manuel, exploring the boundaries between type, book, furniture, ephemera, and exhibition design. Since 2003, he has worked with artists, artisans, and artistic organisations from around the world, and has himself been the subject of a retrospective that travelled from Mexico to Germany.

Studio Manuel Raeder has, among its various activities, been engaged in over 200 publications and responsible for the communication strategies or graphic identities of numerous galleries and cultural institutions. This includes Kölnischer Kunstverein, Kunstverein München, Para Site Hong Kong, Artists Space New York, Galerie Neu Berlin, Mendes Wood DM São Paulo/Brussels/New York, kurimanzutto Mexico City, and the fashion label BLESS.

BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE was established in 2011 to distribute and publish artists who have a strong interest in exploring the format of the artist book, be it as part of an artwork or as the artwork itself. In doing so, the studio has developed longstanding collaborations with artists such as Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Mariana Castillo Deball, Haegue Yang, Nora Schultz, Danh Vo, Heinz Peter Knes, Leonor Antunes, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Eran Schaerf, and Sergej Jensen. Its focus is on sharing the work of younger, not yet established artists, and artists from outside of North America / Western Europe.

Muebles Manuel is an outlet for the furniture and objects that were originally designed for studio projects. These are often elements of corporate identities (Codex Boxes, Sign), outcomes of collaborations with artists (Mountain and Valley Chair, Buch Arm), or components of workshops and exhibitions (Adrián Chair, Cake Table). Muebles Manuel regularly collaborates with artisan carpenters, works in local environments, and is inspired by traditional materials and production methods (Adrián Chair, Double Triple Stool, Arranca Chair), with all items custom-made using sustainable, locally sourced materials.

Words by Madeleine Weavers 

Shop the Adrián Chair here & the collection of BOM DIA publications here.