The first CERBISE Artisan Collection, beginning in Madagascar
Before starting CERBISE, I spent a long time reflecting. My love for products was still there, but I needed to reconsider what I wanted to make, and how. The Artisan Collection gave me a way to begin again.
Until then, my work had largely involved designing products within industrial production systems. Yet I had always been curious about the ways of making that came before them. Where did we begin? What did it mean to take a material from nature and turn it into something useful with our hands?
There is something about handcraft that has long stayed with me: a person, themselves part of nature, working with a natural material to make an object. Understanding its qualities, repeating a movement, gradually giving it form. My respect for the knowledge and skill held in that process became the starting point for this collection.
I believe objects made this way share something with a beautiful tree, a stone, or the contours of a landscape. Their individual forms and textures, and the natural irregularities they retain, can bring a sense of calm. They can be useful objects in our daily lives, while also bringing us closer to nature simply through their presence.
This first journey led to Madagascar, to raffia and the handcraft traditions surrounding it. With the help of Nest, a nonprofit organisation supporting the growth of craft communities, we were introduced to Tanora, an artisan group based there.
I travelled to Madagascar to meet Tanora’s founder, spend time with the artisans, and document their work on film. We began developing new products together as I observed the rhythm of their hands, the ways they handled the material, and the everyday lives surrounding their work. The whole experience reminded me why making products matters so much to me.
I wanted to share what I had seen and felt through the products themselves. My hope was to bring the artisans’ skills into objects that belong in everyday urban life, and for choosing those objects to create tangible opportunities for the people who make them. I was drawn to the possibility that something we use every day could connect lives lived far apart.
Building this relationship also required a framework beyond what I could see and understand firsthand. Alongside connecting us with the artisans and supporting communication throughout production, Nest helped us consider fair working conditions and respect for the people behind the work. Having support to examine aspects of the process that I could not assess alone was an important foundation for the collaboration.
The first CERBISE Artisan Collection holds these encounters and conversations: a curiosity about materials, a respect for making by hand, and the joy of developing something new together.
Through this journal, I hope to share the people and processes behind the finished pieces, alongside the products themselves—and some of the love for making that I rediscovered in Madagascar.