1. Where were you born and where are you from ?

I grew up in Monterrey, Mexico and now live between Mexico City and Barcelona.

2. What is your first memory connected to the art world ?

I was very fortunate to be brought up by a family that fomented creative expression, with more artists, musicians, writers and thinkers forming part of it. I was influenced early on by my aunt; a painter, as well as by visits to my father’s furniture factory and metals foundry which produced works for designers and artists.

3. Have you always worked in the art/design field ?

I always have, yes. Since graduating from a bachelor in fine arts I’ve worked as an independent artist, a production manager at an art fair, a production director and researcher at an experimental perfumery, and finally design director for my own studio: Panorammma.

4. What led you to the design creation ?

My background is in art so I have always been into the creation of objects, but it was only recently, moving cities that I started designing pieces for my own use. I became interested in these objects of “use” because they competed and challenged the mundane by becoming a hyperbole of it and our behaviors, they were not meant to be parenthesized from the everyday experience. For me this became a “trojan horse” for artistic expression.

5. How would you describe your creative process and it influences ?

Panorammma’s inspiration centers around exploring past visions of the future and creating myths of memory. Constructing on our past experiences through new visual narratives. For me, this means remitting to my direct experience living through the spaces of malady, which I see as affecting the psychological sphere of society, epitomized by the increasing loss of immediacy and spread of the aseptic perception of the “other”.

The energy I intend the designs to emit emulates a tension I identify in the devotion to material objects in Mexico. Fetishism in Mexico is deeply rooted in spirituality and religion. Regional syncretism makes objects of devotion idiosyncratic phenomena.

Getting involved with the production of a piece for me has frequently resulted in it fueling the idea for another, leading the way for a very natural, cyclical pattern of conception and creation.

6. Could you describe a typical day of your work ?

During a typical day of work Renee (Panorammma’s Production Manager) and I will follow up with all suppliers and collaborators working on pieces at the moment and each make respective workshop rounds. We will do administrative work like, answering emails, accounting, invoicing etc, and will typically end the day with a creative meeting to review technical drawings and new design ideas. (I like these meetings being last becaus sometimes as I am falling asleep and dreaming about what we reviewed the best ideas come to mind).

7. Why did you choose the specific materials you work with ?

Many of my designs are in a way a continuation of my artistic practice which I consider; a yearning to materialize and decipher my experience as a patient, a time in which I became immersed in the aseptic materials of the clinic. I remit to these materials now as a tool to guide a reflection on notions of subjectivity.

Some pieces however, like my rock work I think as freed from this personal intentionality. I like working with rock because it is the material that dictates the object’s final expression. Rock is surprising. Working with it is like an archaeological experience in which one must discover what each piece hides. Paradoxically, sculpting rock can be meticulous, much like a medical procedure, you only get one chance to get things right. I like working with rocks that are endemic to the region, this contextualizes the work at a geological level.

Other materials I encounter by surprise while enjoying travels through the country to get to know different suppliers and their processes. Others I imagine and collaborate with artisans to technically resolve.

8. What are the technical particularities of your creations ?

We have worked hard to source virtuous collaborators with great disposition to experiment with us and take on difficult and time consuming tasks. For example, in Chainmail Chair, each ring was hand-linked to form a strong and flexible mesh by a jeweler that specializes in medieval craft. We work with some of the most talented and experienced rock, metal and moulding workshops in Mexico that have come to position themselves worldwide.

9. What advices could you give to beginning artists who would like to create sculptural design works ?

It can be exciting to plan, but one could plan forever… I would advise to get started and try things out. There are a lot of surprises that come with making objects you can’t really plan for. Materiality can be weird in that sense, you have to touch it, see it, smell it to know it works, and when it doesn’t don’t discard it as a failure, archive this information, it might be a route to another piece later on.

10. If your works had to belong to a design movement, in which one would you define it ?

I think Panorammma has a retrofuturist quality but I would relate it principally to systems art.

11. What designers have influenced you ?

Lilly Reich, Tobia Scarpa, Gae Aulenti.

12. What contemporary designers do you appreciate ?

There are sooo many but some: Soft Baroque, Vidivixi, Selva Raw… all mind blowing.

13. What contemporary artists (in any kind of art) have you been inspired by ?

Eva Hesse, Isamu Noguchi, Joseph Beuys.

14. If you had to summarize your creations in one word or sentence, what would it be ?

Syncretic.

15. Is there anything you would like to add ?

Thinkers are important for our inspiration as well: Paul Ricoeur, Lacan.

Proust Questionnaire with very short answers (one or a few words) :
(The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust. Other historical figures who have answered confession albums are Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx, Arthur Conan Doyle, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Cézanne…)