Designer Tatiana Apraez has adapted the ancient technique of Tamo, in which wooden objects are veneered with wheat or barley chaff, resulting in modern designs whose form responds to the geography of the San Juan de Pasto region of Colombia.
Tatiana Apráez is a jewellery designer based in Bogotá, Colombia whose creations incorporate the highly specialised barniz de Pasto ‘laquer’ technique, developed during the colonial period in Latin America within the Viceroyalty of Peru. Its main ingredient is a natural resin known locally as mopa mopa, only found in the vicinity.
Apráez works barniz master Germán Obando, to develop ways to apply this unique resin to materials other than wood, including silver, gold, steel, leather, and 3D printed resin. The production of these extraordinary pieces involves a very small number of people: only about 10 harvesters of the mopa mopa resin and 36 varnish masters.
