Designers & Companies

SEP VERBOOM

Via the Livable® platform, the designer Sep Verboom brings together partners as diverse as the geography of the territories in which they are located: from the Peruvian Amazon to Indonesia, local governments, commercial companies or NGOs.

Bio

Within the ONTketen project (UNchain), a transdisciplinary team – the start-up Cleantech Circular Matters, the design platform Livable and the social economy company Pro Natura – are joining forces to tackle social issues such as scarcity of raw materials, climate change or social inequalities. By combining natural waste streams with a biopolymer to form a circular material, ONTketen stimulates shorter chains and reduces CO2 emissions.

In collaboration with several production partners and designers, the team is looking for ways to convert this material into a product at fair market value. Cross-fertilization is at the heart of all phases of this collective research. With this inclusive process, the ONTketen project wants to initiate a different kind of economy, in which financial, ecological and social goals go hand in hand.

Objects

JIWI COLLECTION

TABLEWARE
2019
Certified Shihuahuaco wood
Made with Arsenio Muñoz Blas

Raising awareness to protect the Amazon

Jiwi means wood and forest in the native Shipibo-Conibo language. The project is the fruit of Sep Verboom’s stay in the Peruvian Amazon, where the designer collaborated with local agent AIDER and Flemish NGO Bos+ on the theme of protecting the forest. Raising awareness on sustainable wood is crucial concern, both in Peru and all around the world. For us, Sep Verboom has created a book in which he exposes the problematic and recounts his own experience. “But the table accessories collection is aimed directly at Peruvians”, the designer explains. Made from certified local wood by craftsmen from Cite Indigena, these objects evoke both local skill and international design aesthetics, whose appeal among the Peruvian middle classes is growing rapidly. The idea is to prove to this new public fond of design that they can consume locally and responsibly. In order to strengthen awareness, the objects disseminate different facts on these issues in a fun way.

Ontketen project (unchain)

By combining natural waste streams with a biopolymer to form a circular material, ONTketen stimulates shorter chains and reduces CO2 emissions.