Lilianna Manahan enchants Paris at Design Week
It was a landmark event for Filipino talent that we could not miss. Lilianna Manahan, one of our celebrated designers, was being featured in a special show at the much-anticipated Paris Design Week. She was the only representative from the Philippines, together with a select group of furniture and product designers and artists screened from all over the world.
Dubbed “A Design Experience,” the exhibit hosted by Galerie Joseph was one of the highlights of the annual event where the world converges in the City of Light to see the best and the latest in design for the home, fashion, lifestyle and the arts. The highly influential audience of leading retailers, gallery owners, architects, interior designers, editors and journalists will determine what will be hot in the coming season — how we will be decorating our homes, what we will be wearing, what gifts we will be giving, and what activities we will be engaging in.
That’s why we were so excited for Lilianna’s exposure at this event. Many of the visitors at Maison & Objet, the iconic show for professionals in the décor and design industry, were also on their way to the opening of the exhibit. Galerie Joseph, after all, is the gallery of the moment because of its sharp focus on contemporary creativity. There has been such a high demand to exhibit with them that in the past three years they had to open an additional seven galleries at their beloved Marais, the Paris epicenter of cool.
Arriving at the venue on rue de Turenne, we made our way through a crowd that was assiduously doing the rooms to get the scoop on the latest from this closely watched gallery. There was a huddle of guests at Lilianna’s tableau where we overheard oohs and ahhs and exclamations of “Tres jolie!” that thrilled us to no end and made us proud of the Filipino designer who couldn’t make it to the opening because of commitments in Manila.
Jonalynne Liwanag of Galerie Joseph arrived shortly after and welcomed us. She felt proud of Lilianna as well. “I’m actually Filipino and grew up here in Paris but I always try to stay in touch with my roots,” she shared. Having Lilianna at the exhibit was no doubt a welcome connection for her.
It all started when Lilianna was selected as one of six Rising Asian Talents in the first Maison & Objet Asia in Singapore last year, creating a buzz in the French market and paving the way for her selection by Galerie Joseph. “I got an email from them inviting me to exhibit in Paris for Design Week and of course I was so excited,” related Lilianna. “I chose to show my ‘Fantastic Creatures’ because they were not too big and not so fragile so they would be easy to ship.”
They’re also somehow very French. “People love them,” said Jonalynne. “They’re so fascinating and witty.” Made of brass, the tabletop objet d’art have names like “Merchicken,” a combination of a mermaid and a chicken; “Nog,” the dinosaur-dog; and “Groink,” the griffin-pig.
“I grew up around the figurines of my grandmother (the late Elvira Manahan who was known for her style and joie de vivre) and my parents used to give me balsa wood dinosaurs to assemble as a child,” Lilianna recollects when asked about her inspiration. “They actually bring Etruscan figurines to mind,” says surface artist Tats Manahan, Lilianna’s mother who spends a lot of time in Italy to update her finishing and restoration techniques. The refined environment that she and TV director Johnny Manahan created for their daughter at home no doubt helped shape her aesthetic.
But Lilianna had always been known for her lush imagination, keeping a sketchpad of enchanting creatures and conjured landscapes that she eventually painted on ostrich eggs and assembled for her first show, “Omelette,” at Silverlens Gallery in Makati. She wanted to do more than just paint, however, so she took art foundation studies at Central St. Martins in London and later graduated cum laude at the University of the Philippines with a degree in Fine Arts, majoring in Industrial Design. She also did workshops in Europe with renowned designers like Fabio Novembre and apprenticed with international Filipino designer Kenneth Cobonpue in Cebu. Establishing Studio Magee, she did her first show of functional art objects entitled “Funktion” at AC+632 in Greenbelt 5. She came up with the most unusual pieces like “Spine,” fine bone china vases inspired by MRI scans of her injured back; and “Snoots,” life-sized, upholstered and wheeled versions of her nephew’s animal crackers. A less whimsical piece, “Mwah, Moi!” was an exquisitely crafted, wall-mounted vanity mirror with painstakingly assembled checkerboard woodwork. Her collaborations with various craftsmen around the country honed her design acumen while pushing the possibilities of artisanal production.
No wonder then that her pieces have made it to the international market. At the Galerie Joseph exhibit, her pieces stood side by side with celebrated designers from other countries. Jonalynne showed us some of her other favorites like the Halo Lamp by Kjartan Oskarsson who said he “wanted to create an interesting link between the lamp and its user.” There are no visible controls such as a dimmer or switch but instead they are integrated into the design of the lamp itself.
There was also an emphasis on upcycling and sustainability in curating the pieces. Alvaro Catalán De Ocón from Spain showed his highly successful PET lamps made from reshaped polyethylene terephthalate (the common discarded plastic softdrink bottles) with shades woven from straw and strips of textile. Started with craft communities in Colombia, it spread to other nations like Chile and Ethiopia, resulting in an interesting variety of ethnic weaves indigenous to the particular country of origin.
Sustainability is also something Lilianna has been cultivating ever since she did a Philippine tour in search of manufacturers. She experiments with craftsmen like the abel weavers of Ilocos whom she updates to make new 3-D designs suitable for modern living. Bone porcelain studios and brass workshops have also benefited from her explorations. At the last Manila FAME show of Citem, she challenged wicker weavers to create their biggest and most difficult piece yet — a life-sized rhinoceros which she placed in an African savannah scene. For the FAME show this October, she is working on woven lamps with Masaeco as part of Citem’s Red Box design development program. She has regular collaborations with other studios and exporters as well, like Industria, Triboa Bay Living and Hive.
We asked her about what’s going on with her eponymous atelier, Studio Magee (her nickname as a child). “I’m actually planning to change the name to ‘Lilianna Manahan,’” she confided. Is this an end to her child-like imaginings, we wondered, feeling apprehensive about her “growing up”? Her reply reassured us: “I actually want to spend more time experimenting, and doing more bespoke items for particular clients.” Experimentation, of course, is always good, the way children love to explore and discover. And yes, bespoke is no doubt desirable: it’s always very individual, given much thought, and exclusive. The way Magee has always been with what she does. And let’s not forget the sense of humor — how she always finds something to laugh about, even with her own designs. That’s why she’s so lovable and creates the most delightful things that never fail to amaze us.
* * *
Lilianna Manahan’s “Fantastic Creatures” and other pieces are available at FIRMA at Greenbelt 3 and AC+632 at Greenbelt 5. (Call 757-4009/758-2564 for inquiries.) The Manila FAME show is from Oct. 15-18 at the SMX Convention Center (www.manilafame.com). Follow the authors on Facebook: Ricky Toledo Chito Vijandre; Instagram @ rickytchitov and Twitter @RickyToledo23.
