Designer Fernando Laposse is cultivating connections between Mexico and Qatar for future farming practices that are rooted in culture
Words Francesca Perry
At the centre of Mexican designer Fernando Laposse’s new exhibition, The Sower, at the Museum of Islamic Art, there is a seed bank. A series of 3D-printed urns, rusted to appear timeless, contains seeds gathered in his home country. Each urn can be scanned to discover more about the seeds and their uses in Mexico – information that Laposse sees as critical to the future of farming.
“I have the motto: ‘without culture there is no agriculture’,” he says. So, while The Sower is about growing crops, it is also about the cultural and community life that develops around farming and knowledge that can be passed down through generations and disseminated across oceans. As part of the Qatar Canada and Mexico 2026 Year of Culture, the exhibition, which runs until 31 January 2027, seeks to explore existing and potential connections between Qatar and Mexico through this lens.
Laposse’s show is split into three thematic sections: past, present and future. He drew on extensive historical research for the display contemplating the past. Newly crafted lamps and furniture use materials that were fundamental to the development of global trade in Qatar and Mexico – namely, pearls and cochineal. “The best pearls came from Qatar; that was the main economy,” says Laposse. Meanwhile, cochineal – an insect that lives on the prickly pear cactus in Mexico and produces an intense red dye – became the second most valuable export, after silver, at the height of Mexico’s colonial era.
“A lot of the pearls eventually went to royalty in Europe and were worn with textiles that were dyed with cochineal from Mexico,” says the designer. His use of them in the new work demonstrates the beauty of the materials but also establishes a context of histories based on extraction. “The past was really about ripping everything you could from the ocean or, on the part of the Spanish, taking as much as you could from the Indigenous populations of Mexico and shipping it to the rest of the world.”
The section of the exhibition focused on the present, meanwhile, demonstrates how the relationships between design and nature can be more responsible and less extractive. Here, Laposse’s work from the past decade displays the community- and sustainability-rooted approach he prioritises. One such project, Totomoxtle, engages with the community of Tonahuixtla, a small village in southwest Mexico. Working with Indigenous farmers, Laposse produces a colourful furniture veneer made from corn husks, simultaneously regenerating traditional agricultural practices and supporting community life.
Which takes us to the future: the seed bank. Last year, Laposse visited Qatar and observed the emerging agricultural practices on farms in the desert – a similarly arid landscape to the places where he works in Mexico. He recognised from home many of the plants he saw being cultivated. It was this connection across continents, and the potential for sharing Mexico’s deep agricultural knowledge and indigenous practices for the benefit of Qatar’s future food production, that prompted the idea for a seed bank.
The bank is intended to have a life beyond the show and become what Laposse calls a “cultural exchange”. He hopes the seeds will be planted on the Qatari farms he visited. “Not all of them will grow,” he concedes, “but the ones that do will become effectively supercharged for a much hotter climate.” In return, lessons learned from cultivating these plants in Gulf temperatures can be shared with Mexico, as it looks ahead to a warmer future because of climate change.
“That’s what I think design should be about – shifting the needle towards new ways of thinking”
Such agricultural know-how can result in farming cultures that can thrive independently and be self-sustaining. “Having your own seed stock and knowing how to manage it – that’s the ultimate freedom,” Laposse says.
As a designer, Laposse believes his role is to facilitate knowledge-sharing that can enable better relationships between people and planet. “At the end of the day, that’s what I think design should be about: really shifting the needle towards new ways of thinking.”
Cover image: Fernando Laposse creates imagined creatures and furry benches out of agave fibres, harnessing cochineal to naturally dye some of his works. Photo: Courtesy of Fernando Laposse
