Lightning Interview with Sabrina Merayo Nuñez

Frustrated by trash blowing in the streets? If so, Sabrina's interview will grant you a portal into possibility, a world in which waste becomes art and functional solutions.

Sometimes it’s picking up crushed cans on the streets and other times it’s reimagining discarded computers -- Sabrina’s work reflects her imagination. She sees opportunities where others would see environmental problems. Sabrina Merayo Nuñez is a New York-based visual artist and furniture-maker and the focus of this interview.

Your name and what you do? 

Sabrina Merayo Nuñez, visual artist and furniture-maker at Lunfarda Furniture.

Favorite current movie, book, or series for fun? 

Almost all Terry Gilliam movies and Quay Brother stop motion.

Your most interesting recent furniture project?  

I‘m working on a series of small detachable tables in which I disassemble e-waste such as computers, tablets, and other electronic devices. I make a composition with all the little pieces and then I keep them as a kind of “object dissection” inside of eco-resin blocks. It’s a reuse operation but also a way of focusing on the materiality of the devices with which we navigate virtuality everyday.

In this moment -- climate, pandemic, other factors -- one key way you see sustainability shaping the furniture field? 

Recycling materials but through their characteristics as objects. This includes incorporating the experiences and stories associated with their functions in the final pieces.

In your practice, one concrete change you've made to further sustainability? 

I switched all the materials I work with -- those not from the recycling universe-- to their sustainable and healthier versions.