The project begins with a landscape rather than a drawing. In Lençóis Maranhenses, wind continuously reshapes the dunes, water gathers between the sand formations, and light alters the surface throughout the day. Forms appear and dissolve. Edges soften. What seems fixed is in constant transformation.
This quiet movement informs the foundation of the work.
Based in São Paulo and trained at the University of São Paulo Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Fernanda Marques has developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning architecture, interiors and product design. Across these disciplines, her work often reflects a close attention to landscape and material—how environments shape spatial experience and how natural conditions can be translated into form.
Developed in collaboration with Atelier Bowy C.D. / Henzel Studio, the rug approaches the landscape of Lençóis Maranhenses not as an image to reproduce, but as a condition to translate. The soft curves of the dunes inform the composition, while variations in pile height create a subtle relief across the surface. These shifts generate a quiet topography where texture becomes the primary language.
Color emerges from the same source. The palette reflects the pale tones of sunlit sand, the translucent waters that appear between the dunes, and the deeper shadows that travel across the landscape as the sun moves overhead. Rather than fixed blocks of color, tones move gradually across the surface, allowing the piece to shift in character depending on light and perspective.
Material decisions reinforce this sense of movement. Differences in density and texture create areas that absorb light and others that reflect it, echoing the way dunes reveal new contours as daylight changes. Through Henzel Studio’s hand-knotted craftsmanship, these observations are translated into a textile composition where surface, relief and tone work together to suggest depth and atmosphere.
The result functions less as a conventional rug and more as a textile landscape. An object shaped by the memory of a place where wind, water and time remain in quiet dialogue.
Within the historic setting of Le Cavallerizze during Milan Design Week, the work introduces a fragment of Brazilian geography into the exhibition space—an interpretation of landscape where material, craft and environment converge.
