Header: Courtesy of Anna Maya
Brazilian architect and designer Anna Maya presented Ginga during Salone del Mobile.Milano, inside the Brazilian Furniture space promoted by Abimóvel and ApexBrasil. The modular sofa takes its name from ginga, the fluid, shifting movement at the centre of capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian practice that combines martial arts, dance, acrobatics, music and spirituality.
Ginga and capoeira
Ginga comes from a Brazilian cultural practice shaped by African, Indigenous and European traditions. In capoeira, the body is always in motion, moving through a rhythm of balance, change, response and improvisation. Anna Maya used that idea as the basis for the sofa’s modular structure, as its parts can be rotated and moved around to form different compositions as the room, use or setting changes.
The making of Ginga
The sofa starts with a straight, simple base. Horizontal seams run across the seat, creating sections that can be personalised with different fabrics, colours and textures. Its most distinctive part is perhaps the rounded backrest, which appears full, soft, and comfortable against the straight seat. At the back, a vertical seam ends in a wooden sphere.
The shape of the sphere often appears in Anna Maya’s work, connecting her creations to Brazilian modernism due to its simple geometry, which the movement loved to use in dynamic ways. Here, the sphere suggests movement and balance, an obvious reference to the motion that gave the sofa its name.
A product for life
Sustainability was, for the designer, a given when starting the project – be it in the materials or in the design itself. The use of certified woods, renewable upholstery and production processes aimed at reducing textile waste was, in Ginga, combined with a design conceived for durability and the reconfigurability of components, helping to extend the product’s life cycle.
Presented at Salone del Mobile.Milano, the sofa brings together Brazilian culture and places it in an international setting, introducing Maya’s modular system, geometric research and flexibility to new audiences.
