Recession, inflation, debt default and a weakened currency. Argentina’s economic situation these days is rough But one small business that makes carousels – yes, merry-go-rounds – is thriving in the crisis.
And it's giving national pride a little boost in the process.
Two enterprising young men in Buenos Aires, Mariano Sidoni and Leo Moreno, are reviving a high-end craft tradition that once helped nurture Argentina’s world-famous tango music. Namely, the art of making carousels, merry-go-rounds and the gorgeous design objects inspired by them.
Sidoni and Moreno run their business, Carne Hueso, out of a nondescript garage just off a courtyard behind a busy Buenos Aires street. Inside, a team of men in their 20s – who have left office life behind in order to collaborate with the founders – forge the company’s high-end design objects with their hands.
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Though the business is small, it has won fans, like the Four Seasons Hotel in Buenos Aires, which features Carne Hueso’s wooden houses in its Pony Line lounge. But Sidoni and Moreno have their sights set on globalizing their business, with dreams of selling their wooden pieces in Europe and the U.S. And they plan to attract followers abroad with unique carousel animals, like wooden deer.
“We are making these ‘bambis,’ as I call them, as a limited series,” Sidoni explained to a reporter on a recent visit. “Some of these are painted by well known artists from here in Argentina.”
We want to give people a mixture of nostalgia and hope for the future. – Mariano Sidoni
Sidoni and Moreno started their business after Moreno's grandfather left him his carousel-making studio upon retirement in 2006. The two men were friends from college working in graphic design. But they were bored with their jobs and wanted to strike out on their own.
“We were coming from an academic background,” Moreno explained. “But when we started working in graphic design offices, we began to miss having a connection to Bauhaus, to the art of building, to the world of craftsmanship.
“And then we started to dream about making this studio here into a little Bauhaus of our own, into a space for our own experimentation.”
BUENOS AIRES BAUHAUS
The Bauhaus movement started in Germany in the 1920s. But it led to a global arts and design aesthetic that actually took root most strongly in Tel Aviv and Miami.
With their own ‘little Bauhaus,’ Moreno and Sidoni are playing a role in helping preserve an important piece of Argentina's cultural history.
That’s because carousels in Argentina played an important role in the history of tango, too. John Turci-Escobar, an expert on Argentine tango at the University of Texas at Austin, says that before Argentines could afford record players, they danced to early tango music emanating from the merry-go-rounds while their children took turns riding.
“Most of these calesitas -- these carousels -- had organs,” Turci-Escobar explained. “Organ grinders and organs were one of the ways that early tangos were transmitted.”
But for Sidoni and Moreno, the business transcends history. They say their main aim is to help grownups reconnect with their childhoods.
“When people come here or when they see carousels, they think about their own childhoods,” Sidoni said. “We want to give them a mixture of nostalgia and hope for the future.”
And perhaps help take their minds off the economic present.
