Issue 9, Plus Connect

Manu Bañó

Holding the Gesture

Words SUBIN ANDERSON

Photography ALEJANDRO RAMÍREZ OROZCO

With a sculptor’s sensitivity, Manu Bañó transforms copper, brass, and steel into fluid forms that balance solidity and softness. Born in Valencia and with a background in furniture and lighting design, Bañó worked on projects across Europe before making Mexico City his home in 2013.

His OBJ series reflects a process shaped by both intuition and collaboration, moving between the quietude of a sunlit home studio, where ideas take form in sketches, and the material dialogues that unfold across two workshops: a family-run blacksmith shop in the city and another in Santa Clara del Cobre, a mountain town renowned for its rich copper craftsmanship.

Working strictly with industrial materials, this interplay of traditional techniques and material curiosity forms the foundation for his ongoing OBJ series. What began as a study of small objects has evolved into large-scale furniture pieces, each embodying a refined simplicity, a duality between raw strength and serene stillness.

For Bañó, design comes down to listening closely, watching how materials move and change, and letting them guide the work.

SUBIN ANDERSON: You’ve lived and worked across different cultures and geographies. In your travels, what do you find yourself drawn to? Which moments or scenes in unfamiliar places stay with you?

MANU BAÑÓ: I naturally gravitate toward food, beauty, landscapes, craftsmanship, architecture, the sea, and art. In other words, culture. The moments that stay with me are usually quiet ones: moments of stillness or sharing a meaningful conversation in an inspiring place. I often find myself captivated by landscapes, like a hypnotic desert sunset or a surreal, otherworldly environment. I’m drawn to things that feel far removed from my own culture. Lately, I’ve been especially interested in Swahili culture. Anything that feels foreign tends to fascinate me.

SA: Beyond your solo practice, you’re also a co-founder of the design studio, EWE, formally established in Mexico City in 2017. A few years later, you introduced your first OBJ series under your own name, marking the beginning of your own design language.

MB: Yes, EWE came first. Héctor, Age, and I began working together about nine years ago, shortly after I arrived in Mexico, which isn’t my home country. EWE became a way for me to immerse myself in a place with such a rich history of craft and culture. The studio was a kind of entry point. From the beginning, it’s been a collective effort: the three of us co-founded it and work with a team of ten designers. We operate with a clear manifesto and a shared vision, creating limited-edition furniture and sculptural objects that draw from Mexico’s heritage. Our goal is to preserve traditional techniques while expressing them through a contemporary lens.

I love working with others and hearing different points of view, learning from people. But after a few years, I felt the urge to explore my own voice. That moment came around four years ago.

Now I divide my time pretty much 50/50. It’s surprisingly easy to separate the ideas between the two. EWE is deeply research-based, and we have a team that’s entirely focused on digging into stories, objects, and techniques, both past and present, from Mexico. That’s always our starting point for a new collection. My personal practice is way more intuitive, almost like sculpting. I spend a lot of time in the workshop just watching how materials behave and trying to push their limits.

SA: In your work, there’s a clear sense of care in how you engage with craft, heritage, and collaboration.

MB: For me, design isn’t just about shaping materials. It’s about listening: listening to people, to techniques, and to the history that’s embedded in every gesture. Working with copper, especially using traditional hammering techniques, taught me that form is never isolated. It’s always a conversation: between maker and material, past and present, inheritance and transformation.

When I work with artisans in Mexico, I’m not just borrowing a technique, I’m building a relationship. One that carries weight, rhythm, and patience. That kind of attentiveness and respect is what grounds my entire approach. It’s less about controlling the outcome and more about responding to what each exchange or process is asking from me.

SA: And almost all of your pieces lean toward sculptural form, moving beyond function to hold a strong, refined presence.

MB: Honestly, I feel more comfortable starting with a function because it gives me a place to begin. It is also a useful tool when it comes to selling the work. But what I really care about, deep down, is form. If I could eliminate function altogether in some pieces, I would. My dream has always been to be a sculptor.

SA: Moreover, in the OBJ series, you often work on a large scale. Do you find that the size of a piece changes how it interacts with its surroundings?

MB: Someone once told my mom, “If you want to show in museums, make paintings that fill museum walls.” I started with small-scale objects, and I think everyone should start that way. My goal back then was to have my pieces in as many countries as possible, so I needed something small, affordable, and easy to ship.

That’s how I began with smaller pieces shipped by post. It helped me earn a little money and reach places larger pieces couldn’t. Over time, I’ve slowly scaled up. My goal remains the same: to one day fill museum rooms.

To answer your question: when I walk into a museum, my eyes go straight to the biggest sculpture. Large-scale pieces have the power to shift the entire character of a space. They change the architecture around them. Small objects generally don’t impact a space in the same way.

SA: You split your time between your home-studio in Mexico City, a nearby metal workshop, and another, more distant, in Santa Clara del Cobre.

MB: Santa Clara del Cobre is a small, isolated town in the mountains of central Mexico. It’s a chilly place where people are tough and have their own Purépecha language and culture. The atmosphere is humble and rural, shaped by strong community ties. I work exclusively with Raúl’s workshop there. It’s a small and modest space, but it exemplifies remarkable skill and dedication. We’ve been collaborating for over four years, and I met him through a friend.

Once the pieces are shaped in Santa Clara, I bring them to Mexico City, where I finish them with Pablo. We’ve worked together for over 12 years. He and his family are like a second home to me. They’re the best blacksmiths I know.

Since Pablo’s workshop is close to my home studio, I go there way more often than I can visit Raúl. The two workshops complement each other. Raúl’s is where the copper gets formed, and Pablo’s is where everything comes together and gets finished.

Both spaces are incredibly inspiring to me. Just watching how materials behave and what they can do always gives me new ideas. But the most creative moments usually happen at home. I spend long weekends sketching, when the office is closed and no one’s messaging me. Week after week, that’s when the ideas take shape.