Woven installation by Twenty One Tonnes. Photography by Maddy Pease and Carly Hildebrant.
Suspended between earth and air, light and fiber, tradition and contemporary design, this lighting and basket installation explores the quiet power of craftsmanship. Each basket, hand woven from elephant grass in northern Ghana, carries within it generations of knowledge, rhythm, and memory. When illuminated from within and arranged in sculptural clusters, these vessels transcend their utilitarian origins and become luminous forms — objects that hold not only light, but story.
A Quiet Conversation Between Light and Fiber
In a world saturated with disposable goods and artificial light, the installation offers something different: warmth, texture, authenticity. It slows the viewer down. It encourages a closer look. And in the quiet glow of woven elephant grass, one encounters not only light, but lineage — threads of culture and care woven into every luminous form.
This kind of work is the reason we host Sofa Chats in the first place. A sofa is a place where the slow conversation happens. So is a room full of woven light. Both reward attention, and both reward time.
Hands That Carry Generations: The Artisans Behind the Work
The baskets used in this installation are hand woven by women artisans in northern Ghana, where weaving is both cultural expression and economic lifeline. They are made by the Sirigu Women’s Organization for Pottery and Art (SWOPA) — a non-governmental organization whose mission includes providing young women with marketable skills training and preserving traditional craft by passing it from one generation to the next.
Techniques are handed down through families, often from mother to daughter. The rhythm of weaving is meditative: strands are soaked, twisted, folded, and stitched into spiraling forms. Each piece can take days to complete; a giant basket takes roughly a week. No two are identical. The slight asymmetries and variations are not imperfections — they are signatures of the human hand.
The Material: Elephant Grass
The fiber itself is elephant grass — Pennisetum purpureum — a sustainable indigenous material prized for its structural integrity, rapid renewability, and minimal environmental impact. It grows along the banks of rivers, streams, and swampy areas in Ghana and across West Africa. It matures and tussles like wheat, with a broom-like flower at the top.
To harvest the straw, each broom is pulled down from the husk and left to grow into new tussles. The straw is harvested wet, dried in the sun, and prepared for weaving. The long, sturdy fibers create a weave that is at once lightweight and robust — flexible enough to take the curves and clusters of an installation like this one, strong enough to hold their form for years.
It’s a material that humbles you when you spend any time with it. Modern materials science would struggle to produce a fiber this useful, this beautiful, and this gentle on the land it comes from. Generations of women in Ghana already had it figured out.
Baskets by Twenty One Tonnes. Photography by Maddy Pease and Carly Hildebrant.
Why Ethical Sourcing Matters in Home Design
By sourcing these baskets through ethical and sustainable practices, the installation becomes more than an aesthetic gesture. It becomes part of a larger ecosystem of responsible design.
Ethical sourcing means artisans are paid fairly, work in safe conditions, and retain ownership of their traditional knowledge. Sustainable harvesting protects the grasslands from depletion, allowing the elephant grass to regenerate naturally. The two practices reinforce each other: a craft tradition can only continue if both the people and the land are protected.
We think about this often in our own studio. A handcrafted sofa, a custom dining table, a hand-woven basket — none of them are truly luxurious if they cost someone else their fair wage or their forest. Beauty and responsibility are not opposing values. They are interconnected, and they show up together in the pieces that age best.
If you’re an interior designer in Los Angeles working on projects where these values matter, this is the kind of collaboration we love being part of.
The Collaborators
Three studios came together for this installation. Each is worth knowing on its own.
Twenty One Tonnes is the Los Angeles-based studio behind the woven baskets and pendant lights. Their pieces are made in partnership with SWOPA in Ghana and with women artisans across West Africa. Beyond the editorial beauty of the work, what we appreciate most is the studio’s commitment to making the supply chain visible — naming the makers, documenting the process, and treating ethical sourcing as a starting point rather than a marketing line.
Maddy Pease is a Los Angeles-based film photographer, art director, and designer with a background in design and media arts from UCLA. Her work brings a quiet, observational warmth to the installation — the kind of light and texture that rewards a second look.
Carly Hildebrant is a Los Angeles-based film photographer whose work focuses on the energy in a space — atmospheric, intimate, alive to the texture of a room. She and Maddy worked together to document the installation across changing light throughout the day.
Three Los Angeles studios. One Ghanaian women’s collective. One quiet, luminous installation that holds the work of all of them at once.
See the Installation at Our Hermosa Beach Studio
The installation is on view in our Hermosa Beach showroom, where you can see the woven pieces in changing daylight — exactly the way they were designed to be seen.
We host visitors Monday through Saturday, 10am to 5pm. Whether you’re researching pieces for a project, curious about ethical sourcing in interior design, or simply want to see how a room feels when it’s filled with this kind of quiet light, we’d love to host you.
321 Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254 Mon – Sat, 10am – 5pm contact@madebyinch.com · (310) 504-0896
— Kayla
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Twenty One Tonnes?
Twenty One Tonnes is a Los Angeles-based design studio that creates handwoven baskets, pendant lights, and sculptural pieces in partnership with women artisans in West Africa. Their work focuses on ethical sourcing, sustainable materials, and traditional craft — particularly the use of elephant grass woven by artisans in northern Ghana.
What are Twenty One Tonnes baskets and pendants made of?
The pieces are handwoven from elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum), a fast-growing sustainable indigenous fiber that grows along rivers, streams, and swampy areas in Ghana and across West Africa. The grass is harvested wet, sun-dried, and then woven by hand into baskets, pendant light shades, and sculptural forms.
Who weaves the Twenty One Tonnes baskets?
The baskets and pendants featured in this installation are woven by the Sirigu Women’s Organization for Pottery and Art (SWOPA), a non-governmental organization based in northern Ghana. SWOPA’s mission includes training young women in marketable craft skills and preserving traditional weaving knowledge across generations.
Why is ethical sourcing important in furniture and home design?
Ethical sourcing ensures that artisans are paid fairly, work in safe conditions, and retain ownership of their traditional knowledge. Combined with sustainable harvesting, it allows craft traditions to continue without depleting the land or exploiting the people who make the work. For homeowners and interior designers, choosing ethically sourced pieces means investing in objects that age beautifully and have a story you can stand behind.
Where can I see the Woven Installation in person?
The installation is currently on view at the Made by Inch showroom in Hermosa Beach, California — 321 Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254. We’re open Monday through Saturday, 10am to 5pm. You’re welcome to drop in or book a consultation.
Does Made by Inch design furniture that pairs with woven and natural-fiber pieces?
Yes. We design and build handcrafted, made-to-measure sofas and furniture in our Los Angeles workshop, and we love working with interior designers and homeowners who are layering natural-fiber pieces — woven baskets, rattan, cane, linen, plaster — into their homes. The aesthetic is one of our most-requested directions, especially for South Bay and coastal projects.
