Tenacissimae
outdoor furniture collection

The design of this collection was guided by the poetic suggestion of the material and its connection to the tenacious history of the libbanare, a figure that's deeply rooted in the communal memory of the people of Maratea (PZ), Southern Italy.

The libbani (vegetable ropes) production sustained this sea community for generations, being part of the social and spontaneous economic fabric of the village. The process of making these ropes was long and characterized by extremely poor working conditions, but allowed hundreds of families of Maratea to make a living. With the advance of globalisation, and with new job opportunities, the need to produce libbani has slowly disappeared and the technique forgotten.

Nuova Libbaneria Mediterranea is a social enterprise that recovered the libbani technique from archival and interview research, and transferred it to a group of selected women aiming at their social and occupational reintegration through artisanal work, transforming a history of poverty into one of ransom and resilience.

Taking inspiration from archive photographs depicting women sitting on the ground weaving ropes as a collective activity, the objects that were born from the collaboration between Sara Bologna and Nuova Libbaneria Mediterranea invite the users to put their bodies back into that same history, through the practice of communal making and communal staying.

The prototypes of the collection were developed during a two-week residency in Maratea, where the designer and the women of the Libbaneria worked closely in a co-creation process.

The result is a collection of poufs and outdoor furniture through which to inhabit the symbol. Equipped with a set of variable crowns, the seats frame and ideally elevate the women who wove the story of the libbani.

The backrests look like haloes for Maratea's saints, holy women as tenacious as the salt and the sea. The collection tests above all a practice of re-enchantment, by recounting through aesthetic and symbolic means the redemption of a territory and a community. 

The name references the plant whose leaves are used for weaving the libbani (Ampelodesmus mauritanicus, belonging to the  phytological class of Stipetea Tenacissimae). The stubborn resistance of its leaves are also a common characteristic to the ropes, the libbanare back then, and the libbanare today.

Read more about the project in the press:

_ RAI3 / The Ropes from the Sea / watch the episode of "Generazione Bellezza"

_ Exibart / Innovation and Design in Maratea

_ ADI - Associazione per il Disegno Industriale / Basilicata: Design and Tradition