Habitus19 selma

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Simple storytelling Confirming the Philippines as one of the world’s most original creative hubs is designer, Vito Selma. Aya Maceda sees his products telling crosscultural stories and epitomising the new wave of Filipino creatives renewing traditional crafts for the modern world. text Aya Maceda | photography Jan Gonzales (portraits)

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D

uring the high velocity of the recent Manila FAME furniture exhibition, I had an encounter with an exquisite table. I was intrigued by the movement of the piece, and the simplicity wrought out of its very complexity. Here, the functional, usually hidden, dowel is upturned to become the sculptural base of the table. And it is the base, rather than the top, that is the table’s focal point. Exposed and lengthened, the timber dowels are delicately held together by a series of twisted timber frames. The logical but fluid arrangement achieves a texture similar to that of a rope. The piece is artfully crafted to perfection and imbued with a Scandinavian quality.

It was one of those rare moments – like finding a painting that truly inspires and that one just has to bring home without considering price or size. I immediately felt the need to know who the designer was, where he came from, how he acquired the sensibility to create such an object. When I met the young Filipino behind the Geo table, my conversations with him about his environment, family, travels and explorations would piece together how his creations are birthed.

Vito Selma grew up in Cebu City in the 1980s when the Philippine furniture export business

was at its peak. Cebu was the manufacturing hub of the region and was dubbed ‘the Milan of Asia’. His family ran a thriving furniture manufacturing business, specialising in traditional furniture. They ran two factories that were the young Vito’s childhood playgrounds, places where he discovered the joys of working with off-cut materials – such as the dowels that he would later use as feature elements in his own work. He had the luxury of experimenting and testing his creative ideas many times over, and his early exposure to the business and to local craftsmanship would be the foundations of his work.

Vito grew up visiting local and international design shows where his family participated, which gave him a view of the possibilities of design. Here, he encountered the works of another Filipino designer, Debbie Palao, and was seduced by her understanding of bamboo, and the extraordinary ways she used it in her own work. Inspired and charged with the desire to go beyond production and to engage in design, Vito joined workshops run by Kenneth Cobonpue and Debbie Palao herself through the Designer’s Guild of the Philippines. Under their mentorship, Selma produced his first collection, Uzima, for which he won Best Product at the Cebu International Furniture & Furnishings Exhibition 2004.

previous | Vito in his family’s factory, which produces traditional furniture, where he now create his inventions. above | GEO TABLE WITH ITS FEATURE BASE, WHICH WON BEST PRODUCT AT Cebu X Furniture Show 2008. opposite | the Delilah rocking chair, Vito's take on the traditional filipino rocking chair.

I love their understanding of keeping things natural, architectural, yet simple.

Vito | designer

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He hardly uses colour, as he believes that colour is in itself a strong language that carries with it meaning from culture to culture.

AD After obtaining a Masters in Industrial Design from the Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan, Vito also trained under Rafaella Maniarotti, working on projects for Alessi.

Seeking a different perspective, he then interned for George de Haast, a prominent South African interior designer who taught him the values of space, balance, and bringing nature into space. Vito travelled extensively and was very much inspired by Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics – which is now evident in his own work. “I love their understanding of keeping things natural, architectural, yet simple,” he says.

To Vito, simplicity itself is the most complex design. He travels to investigate and be inspired, but goes home to Cebu to realise the work. “Every person, country and market wants different things. It is up to me to translate all the information and create a piece that can cross cultures,” he says. This results in appealing designs that challenge the cultural norm of visual clutter and noise, instead exploring the naked qualities of timber through its grain, texture and fluid form. He hardly uses colour, as he believes that colour is in itself a strong language that carries with it meaning from culture to culture.

above | vito in the work corner of his factory – while make-shift, the desk still has a sense of beauty in its lines, balanced with raw timber. below | the paisley lounge chair, with the form and caress of a woman.

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It could be stories of travel, of the forest it comes from, or the stories of the lives of the people behind the hands that produce them.

Vito | designer

Vito’s body of work is a culmination of lessons learned from exploring material, understanding needs and having a sense of responsibility to his community. “The world doesn’t need any more furniture than what it already has,” he says. “What I try to produce is something different, an alternative to the chair or table you already have in your home… threedimensional objects with stories. It could be stories of travel, of the forest it comes from, or the stories of the lives of the people behind the hands that produce them. I am just trying to offer a different chair.”

Some of his collections are birthed from working with communities where traditional crafts are dying. Vito has made it a goal to revive their craft in new forms. Each of his collections expresses a different inquiry and tells a story – literally. He collaborates with local storytellers in Cebu to develop an idea for a collection to an actual tale that re-informs the details of his work.

For example, the collection called Baud (the local term for ‘wave’) captures the endless motion of the open water – a tribute to the ocean that keeps his island city home in its undulating embrace. Then there is the Paisley chair, inspired by the warmth and form of a woman and which had the aim to express both visually and ergonomically the comfort of being held by a woman. The story behind this particular chair reads: “There she would sit, by the breakwater, brown shoulders curving in the sun; white frills of a hiked-up Sunday dress gathered at the knees, a wide-brimmed hat falling in soft folds over her face. A silhouette against the rising sun that would recur always in what I'd do…” (Kae Batiquin).

Vito Selma’s work shows artistry and a quality that demonstrates a real understanding of material and assembly. Through him, we get a glimpse of what is happening collectively in the Philippines – its transformation into a design hub in Asia through young hands with a strong manufacturing backbone, reviving local craftsmanship.

Vito Selma | vitoselma.com habitusliving.com/issue19/vitoselma

above | hanako console, inspired by a geometric flower, and arata dining chair, which utilises studied ergonomics for comfort, without using cushions. below | the Baud collection, A tribute to the ocean that has kept Selma’s home city in its embrace.

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