Keeto – Creative Studio 

Local design with international ambitions

Design work is often invisible. But when we hold a cell phone, a computer, a bottle or sit in a chair or at a table, that is an object out of design work.

Cláudio Mangujo, 33, with a degree in Design, creative, teacher, and his former classmate, René Chambal, 37, wanted to go beyond the superficial and even the commercial. They founded Keeto – Creative Space, a Mozambican design brand, inspired by the place, to bring products with a deep identity and rooted in the habits and customs of Mozambicans, under a borderless and contemporary perspective.

“We understand that design has to respond to people’s problems, working with people. We know the cultures, we know each other through the artefacts, the objects we use. So it’s important for creative work to mirror people’s way of life, but for them to also participate in this process,” Cláudio and René say, always complementing each other’s ideas, which shows the harmony with which Keeto – Creative Space becomes possible, which they decided to establish around 2013.

Today, between individuals and institutions, between commercial and non-commercial, they have in their spaces products created by Cláudio and René through the Keeto brand. From chairs to tables, shelves and even more daring projects such as the installation mounted in a bank branch with a modern, interactive and digital design. What they are passionate about in their work is defying the odds, touching the unimaginable, elevating the traditional, the local to a contemporary level.

“We understand that design has to respond to people’s problems, working with people.”

For the last three years, they have been working on a creative that they decided to call “Etno”, but with a view towards the traditional. From what it was before, which today is no longer usual or functional, it can be rescued with an eye on people’s needs. The xiguiane chest, an important artefact in lobolo ceremonies, especially in the south of the country, but which was already falling into disuse due to its shape, is giving families a new charm.

“Back then, this chest worked. But not anymore. We saw situations where chests were rented just for use in the ceremony. Other brides accepted the traditional chest at the ceremony, but later dismissed it. We paid attention and researched the phenomenon and arrived at another concept of chest, without hurting the historical context, but taking it to the current context of families, of young couples in modern homes. We managed to bring a product that responds to tradition, but also to contemporary needs.”

Cláudio and René point out Keeto – Creative Studio as a brand that intends to position itself within the Mozambican, African and world market, by creating original products, based on local identity, contemporaneity and the typical metamorphosis of today’s societies.

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Issue 74 Jul/Aug | Download.