Caruma – When worlds collide…

In our hunt for ‘things’ that tell stories, we’ve come across a creation that encapsulates so much of what the steki represents. The Caruma series, by Eneida Tavares, embodies the happy collision of two cultures that have stories to share.

Tavares has worked with the team at Vicara to create a series as unique to your home as the story it tells. The designer’s base in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal and her family roots from Cape Verde and Angola, are the source of this happy material merging.

From Portugal, she takes her skills in the realm of ceramics and from the West African soils of her heritage she brings traditional weaving experimentation. The combination doesn’t initially strike you as obvious but Tavares has magicked it up with the dexterity of her own hands.

By mixing the fields of earthenware and basketry, Tavares emphasises the beauty of colliding geographies as well as cultures and techniques where one ends up depending on the other. As she succeeds in encapsulating her two selves, Tavares calls it a demonstration of her “intercultural dialogue that mixes closeness to what is far away“. And this dialogue is extended to the asymmetry and uniqueness of every piece made.

Caruma is made out the obvious earthenware along with pine tree needles and raffia. Sizes vary so if you want to add one of these babies to your home by buying on the steki, start a conversation with the designer about what’s on offer.

Photos courtesy of Vicara, Eneida Tavares and Francisco Salis Gomes

Portfolios on the steki

More articles