TU BI PROJECT

Ivan Tafuro is an independent designer based in Milan. Born in Brindisi, in 1979, he studied Fashion Design in Milan, at Istituto Marangoni where he started his career as menswear designer working for prestigious Italian and European fashion brands. In 2019, driven by the desire to express himself through new creative means, he approached the ceramics world at Officine Saffi, where he explored the traditional techniques of Italian artistic craftsmanship. This experience brought to life his first design projects. His approach doesn’t follow the traditional modeling, but starts from a bespoke design study built for the process and realization of each piece. The most recent years have become an opportunity for observation of the urban space and a creative exercise in translating visual reality into imaginary, and imaginary into artifact.

TU BI was founded in 2021 by Brindisi-born artist Ivan Tafuro. The project draws inspiration from Milano’s urban elements and decor, recreating sleek shapes through handmade glazed earthenware ceramic sculptures, and glazed metal lighting. TU BI’s aesthetic is bold, colorful, and in perfect harmony with the postmodern manifestations of the 1980s. The brand wants to influence the everyday life of its audience who will perceive each work differently, associating it with traditional signs such as a trident, letters of the alphabet, notes, and musical instruments up to spaceships. The name is a take on the pronunciation of the infinitive “to be”—symbolic of the Self as the highest form of artistic expression—and a play on the Italian word “tubi,” meaning tube-like or cylindrical.