Chris Force: Your focus is on collectible design and not as much the fine art world?

Anna Carnick: Definitely. The projects I’m drawn to always center around projects that have a social or environmental justice focus. That’s very important to me.

Given the contrast between the accessibility and career opportunities in the fine art world versus the design world, particularly for emerging artists, how do you perceive the evolving landscape for young artists today?

Nifemi Marcus-Bello: I think it’s the same with art and design. My practice is split into two—the commercial side and the artistic side. The commercial side exists for me to survive, where I’m speaking to and collaborating with brands to design meaningful products. On the artistic side I create art I feel I need to speak about. It should resonate with people, create dialogue, spark conversation—what good art does. I feel design should do the same as well. But if you’re monetizing design as a practice, it becomes tricky depending on the area you’re in.

In Africa being a visual artist is more lucrative than being a designer. In Europe and London my friends would say being a designer is a lot more lucrative than the art world. In America, depending on if it’s New York—art pays the bills, design doesn’t. Producing art is also cheaper. Design is heavily driven by finance and creating a prototype. Most designers would say artists are killing it. There’s no design work I know of that sells for $14 million. It’s also harder to get into design because you need funds.

Anna: The business of art and design is fascinating, and quite difficult. Most designers put a lot of puzzle pieces together to do work they want to do. There’s a bit of a balancing act.

Since the ’90s we’ve seen more narrative-driven design. Design and storytelling have become part of the zeitgeist, and more people are excited about it. The work I’m especially excited about offers personal storytelling that resonates on a broader level.

Does the creator’s intent for the work matter to you? Is the sincerity no longer there if you’re telling your narrative through something like a Nike collab versus fine art expression?

Anna: The work I focus on is collectible design, so it’s somewhere in the middle.

Nifemi: I find it funny that in the West, they emphasize not talking about money and art. They want it to feel like an afterthought. There are some things I will work on where I’m thinking of financial gain on the commercial side. If you collaborate with Nike, it’s a conglomerate that needs funds. If you’re designing for them, you have to think about it from a commercial, economically viable, product side of things.

Do you mentally draw a box around what is allowed and not allowed into your process on the fine art side of things
versus your commercial side?

Nifemi: There are conversations I want to spark through the work I’m doing. That’s the most important part for me. I want to tell the right narratives around material, production, my people, and myself. I’m happy I was able to bring this project here and not a chair, because I’m sure you’ve seen 1,000 chairs. I want people to understand there’s a social side to design as well.

Contemporary design looks like systematic thinking. If you’re designing a chair, why not discuss the system behind making it so another person doesn’t make the same mistakes? We should be sharing more information in the design world. Even when I research design across Africa, it’s something that’s inherently African. People are happy to share information on where things are made and create archives. Why would someone go to design school, research how to make the chair, and then come out doing the same thing?

I create art I feel I need to speak about. It should resonate with people, create dialogue, spark conversation—what good art does.

How did Omi Iyọ originate?

Nifemi: I had the opportunity to critique the Venice Architectural Biennale school. While touring with the students I had a conversation with a Senegalese migrant who told me a horrific story about his journey via boat from Senegal to Italy. After that conversation I realized I wanted to create something around migration to spark a dialogue.

Anna: The work is filled with salt. Nifemi wanted to incorporate salt as an element because of the conversation he had with the Senegalese gentleman. He mentioned he couldn’t get the taste of salt out of his mouth for weeks after the journey. When we showed Omi Iyọ at Design Miami, we used a white salt. Here in Milan we went with pink salt because in Senegal, there’s a beautiful pink lake where pink salt is harvested. It’s another way to honor them.

Over the course of the week the salt flows down from an aperture at the bottom creating a pattern of crystals below. It’s made from upcycled stainless steel that’s been highly polished. The idea is that we can each see ourselves and see our own reflection in the work. It makes you think about your relationship to those who make this very treacherous journey. It also makes us think about how we treat one another, and what each of our own roles is in relationship to this larger crisis. It’s really meant to spark a dialogue.

How did your conversation start with the migrant?

Nifemi: He walked up to me and was speaking the local dialect, Wolof, because he thought I was Senegalese. He was curious because he saw me walking students in and out of the Biennale. I think maybe he works there or lives there. It’s funny because he didn’t want to give me any information about himself. I don’t even know his name. I also felt I didn’t need that, so to speak. When Africans see each other, we tend to at least give ourselves a nod.

How do you view the role of beauty in making socially active work more accessible, particularly in contrast to narratives that may be considered visually challenging or “ugly?”

Anna: This is one of the things I appreciate and respect so much about Nifemi, because he creates the most beautiful pieces. His work is like an onion, you just peel back the layers. You are initially struck by the elegance of the aesthetics, the elegance of the pieces. As you go deeper the materiality tells one story, and the process tells another. He is brilliant and considers his projects from a single angle. Somebody can come in and appreciate it on a surface level, but if they are so inclined to dig in a little bit more, there’s a whole universe they can discover.

Nifemi: As a designer my job is to demonetize beauty. No matter what it is, the goal is for me to understand both the working class and high-class client. Even if you have $1 to produce an object, it has to be beautiful. And beauty is subjective.

nmbello.com

annacarnick.com

To be transparent, I was skeptical of his work. Maybe it’s my East Coast upbringing, the countless hours I spent in grimy punk clubs, or the formal walls of art academia I later fumbled through, but one thing I’ve come to think of as truth is that a black wardrobe is serious, but color is frivolous; it’s the choice of children and clowns or, in the worst case use, hippies (the cultural enemy of my youth).

So when the idea was presented that I spend the day writing about Yinka, the designer known for explicitly using bold colors and patterns—the designer with a new pattern titled “Shower Me With Flowers,” I was reluctant.

I was, of course, very familiar with his work which includes a successful mix of products, public installations, museum exhibitions, and artwork. I figured I should do it; I should learn a little something. When he arrived at the studio we took some photos, we ate some sandwiches. I drank an Arnold Palmer. (Do they have those in London? I forgot to ask.) I asked him about his work, his life, about the North London neighborhood he grew up in, about his Nigerian family, his studio, his young family—and I listened. Slowly, his optimism and sincerity broke me. I began to see the work through his eyes, and I liked what I saw. Here’s some of what he told me.

—Chris Force

Yinka Ilori surrounded by his collection for Momentum Textiles & Wallcoverings. “This collection for Momentum was all about affirmation and was inspired by dream catchers. In my culture dream catchers might seem a bit strange, even demonic. But for me they symbolize catching dreams and positive affirmations,” he says. Photo by Chris Force

North Londoners often have a cockney accent. A bunch of creatives blossomed from that area as well, from musicians to actors to artists to football players.

I studied design for three years, and before then I studied fine art. Eventually I went on to intern for designer Lee Broom for five months. He was the only one crossing between art, sculpture, and design at the time. He did this curve-shaped table, and underneath it was a Persian rug. It was beautiful.

Initially I couldn’t see myself anywhere within the design industry. Once you go to art or design school you’re introduced to the Francis Bacons—who were great, incredible artists, but I couldn’t connect to the themes within their work. I couldn’t see me.

We were learning about old masters who didn’t grow up in London or between two cultures with immigrant parents like I did. With design I want to connect with the story. I want to find myself expressed within those things and ideas. That’s the reason I decided to go to Nigeria.

I had only been to Nigeria for two weeks when I was 11 and again with my family after university. My parents were always strict about reminding me I was Black and British—that although I lived in the UK, I was still Nigerian. They wanted me to maintain those traditional values and not dilute them because we lived in Western society.

Commissioned by the LEGO Group, the “Launderette of Dreams” is an interactive art installation and play space inspired by the creative optimism and resilience of children. Photo by Mark Cocksedge

My parents left Nigeria hoping it would give them satisfaction and a better life for their kids. What else can you lose when you’ve given up everything? They put their own dreams on hold to rebuild somewhere else. My parents have been in London for over 40 years, and they’ve never forgotten their roots.

We would watch Nigerian movies as a family, wear Nigerian clothes, go to Nigerian church service. I think that’s probably why I’m here today. I feel it’s given me my voice within this world I’m cultivating. I’m trying to push finding joy within design or art without seeking permission.

In Nigerian culture you often have to be a doctor, engineer, or scientist—something academic. Luckily my parents were very accepting of me wanting to be a designer. They came to my first graduate show where I designed a table for the French company Ligne Roset.

Even today they still come to all my shows and are proud of my collaborations and projects.

I was always obsessed with giving back to Nigeria because everything I’ve created—the colors, motifs—all come from there. In a way I felt I was stealing or borrowing without having lived there. I came upon some money from the British Council and had my first solo exhibition in Nigeria titled “This is Where it Started” in collaboration with Whitespace Gallery.

Nowadays it’s amazing to see the cultural exchange happening over there. There are musicians signing with big labels in Nigeria, and they host the Lagos Biennial. But back then I was one of the first people to do an exhibition in Nigeria with the British Council.

I spent two weeks there diving into the culture with my family. I went to a few artistic studios, spoke to Nigerian artists, and met Nifemi Marcus-Bello. He was just beginning his career at the time. I feel there are a lot of eyes on Nigeria now—especially the music, architecture, fashion, and design. Now I go back and forth between London and Nigeria and I don’t feel like an imposter.

I love both of my cultures, and I want to celebrate both of those identities. There are so many things I’ve learned from being British and being Nigerian. My experiences are so different and personal. There’s resilience, hardship, and emotion within the work I create.

That’s why I always find myself in between art, design, and architecture. First and foremost I’m a storyteller—forget about art or design. That story might come in the form of a film or a chair or a tea towel or a mural.

The art world can often feel very closed off. I can’t stand gatekeepers—those people who set the rules and tell you what’s cool or what’s considered art. I found myself listening to those critics saying, “Is he an artist? Is he a designer? Is it a chair or a sculpture?”

I spent two or three years creating a body of work that wasn’t resonating with anyone. All the writers were asking, “What’s he doing?”

Around 2015 I decided I was either going to quit creating work or try one last time. It was make or break for me because I wasn’t making any money despite producing so much work and investing a lot. I created the project titled “If Chairs Could Talk,” where each chair was based on a person I went to school with.

“Filtered Rays” is Yinka’s first permanent installation in Berlin, Germany on the banks of the Spree in front of the Estrel Berlin Hotel in Neukölln. Photo by Linus Muellerschoen

That project changed my life. I wrote my own press release and spent weeks trying to find the right press contacts for editors.

Design Milk eventually featured the project on their Instagram page, and it went mad from there. That’s when I started getting knocks at the door from museums and galleries. Then Brighton Museum acquired a chair from that collection, which was crazy. Things just got better and better after taking control of my own narrative and destiny.

I studied product, so I had ideas for working within architecture and spatial design, but I couldn’t execute them. I couldn’t use CAD and only knew SketchUp to a basic level. I knew to grow and take on bigger commissions, I had to hire someone.

I ended up hiring a student architect from Lithuania who was with me for two years. We pitched for a project in 2021 to design an underpass in Battersea called “Happy Street.” That same year we won a competition to design “The Colour Palace,” a pavilion inspired by a Lagos market in Nigeria.

We beat architectural practices and big firms. Some architects can’t tell stories—that’s the last thing they think about.

Everything grew from there. I’ve been creating work for nearly 15 years, but the last 10 have just been pure hustle. I was super dedicated. I remember working 9-to-5 at Marks & Spencer, a food and clothing store in London, just to fund my studio.

All the money I made went into making chairs or tables, and then I’d try to sell them. During that time my friends were buying cars and traveling. I wanted to do that, too, but I always believed there was something greater out there for me. I didn’t know when, but I kept affirming I would have my own studio one day.

You have to believe that small projects will open doors for bigger projects. That was my mentality at the time. I couldn’t travel much or live a luxurious life. There was always the risk of wondering if would ever happen, but I’ve always been strong-headed. I believed if you could dedicate your life to something, it should eventually pay off.

The last five years, I can say with my chest, I’m a fully functioning artist who pays people’s salaries. I can confidently say I’m the best at what I do. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my work. If you put me in a room for 100 days I would produce millions of sketches and ideas.

It comes natural for me. If you give me a commission I’m going to give you the best—not a rush project. It’s coming from a place of love.

Growing up in London we had a playground in our estate that was terrible, but I loved the memories it gave me and the joy it brought. That playground taught me how to find joy, build a community, and respect one’s cultures. That’s why I relish designing for people in communities.

My work resonates with the West African community, especially the Nigerian community, because of the use of patterns like Ankara, which is a Dutch wax print made in Indonesia but worn by Nigerians. Growing up around these fabrics, using color and storytelling came natural to me.

Many artists and designers struggle with using color in their work—they don’t know how to use it. They put so much pressure into applying green and blue or pink and yellow.

“A Magical World” is an immersive forest showcasing the versatility of Yinka’s tile collection with Domus. Photo by Robin Gautier

My parents were rule-breakers. If they felt good in it, they were going to go to a party wearing pink and yellow. Maybe it looked mad, but they were going to own it. It gave them a sense of confidence and armor in a country where they experienced racism. I have a lot of respect for that fabric.

Textiles do that—people want to connect and talk to you about what you’re wearing. I became obsessed with that language, and it ran through into my work.

This collection for Momentum was all about affirmation and was inspired by dream catchers. In my culture dream catchers might seem a bit strange, even demonic. But for me they symbolize catching dreams and positive affirmations.

They inspired me to create art that opens space for affirmation. Colors aren’t just aesthetic; they can affect our mood and mindset. Green in a park, blue of the sea—these colors evoke feelings of peace and calm. Even a rose, with its pink or red, symbolizes love. Momentum was great to work with.

We initially had six or seven colorways, and then expanded into off-white. The different color variations allow people to choose the tones, or the softness of the colors, or the hues of orange and pink. I think there’s something in there for everyone.

Everyone we’ve worked with comes to me because they want joy. They want artwork that’s going to tell a story and take you on a journey. Now people recognize my style when they see my work. It took years to find my visual language, but over time it became a consistent theme. Having a style has also given me the opportunity to move into different spaces.

In my Nigerian culture, joy is love. Even if you have a penny to your name you’ll find a pocket of joy.

We’re programmed to stop being joyful when we get to a certain age, and you forget about those values. We’re told that as adults we can’t do those things anymore.

With anything you do there always will be critics. People often question why we should enjoy fashion or why design should be fun and playful. They argue that design should be serious.

However, as creatives, we should consider how objects can create moments of joy. That idea should run through fashion, architecture, and even film. I think initially people think they don’t need joy. It’s only after they engage with it that they feel the effects and rethink it.

Dreams are how I built my studio. My world is driven by a desire to keep dreaming and questioning things. It’s about pushing the space and asking: Who owns space? How do we own space? How do we share space?

The Nigerian parable that says “No matter how long the neck of the giraffe is, it still can’t see the future” is about not judging someone by appearances—it’s about equality and respect.

Having the longest neck doesn’t mean you’re better than me. There’s a level of humor in my work achieved using parables. I want to make you feel comfortable but also uncomfortable. I want to ease you into my world. I want to tell you things you might not be aware of. 

My parents used parables to teach us life lessons. Instead of getting a smack we would get a parable. I would be in tears because a parable cut so deep.

yinkailori.com

A version of this article originally appeared in Sixtysix Issue 12. Subscribe today

Maryam Turkey is an Iraqi-American artist and designer based in Brooklyn. In 2023 she received the For Freedoms annual fellowship, recognizing her commitment to using art as a tool for social change. As part of her Socrates Annual Fellowship in the same year she unveiled a public sculpture at the Socrates Sculpture Park. Most recently Maryam was awarded the 2024 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, recognizing immigrants who have shown early career excellence in the United States.

Here the two designers meet for the first time to discuss their work.

—Gianna Annunzio

The “Empty Chair” installation at Museum Voorlinden, part of Maarten’s solo exhibition “It’s About Time.” Photo by Antoine van Kaam

Maarten Baas: I think I first came across your work on social media. I liked the projects I saw, and it kept on intriguing me. There’s a unique shape-language and versatility in your work, which I feel is within the same family as some of my own. There’s a similarity, which always appeals to me.

I wish I could have come up with some of your ideas because they’re better than I could have imagined. The more I learned about you, the more surprised I became about the layers added to your practice—the two-dimensional work and, eventually, the music. It all became a complete picture, and I like that very much. It has a very autonomous and authentic feel to it.

Maryam Turkey: I’m so honored you wanted to chat with me, and to hear these words. You’ve always been my inspiration. I studied you in college and in production methods class. The moment my eyes landed on your work, it brought me back to my childhood and working with clay.

It’s nice to know the admiration goes both ways. You live in New York, right?

I grew up in Iraq, but now I’m based in New York. Right now I’m in Leros, Greece, working on a residency and project for a gallery in Istanbul. I eventually came to a point where I could either make work that would sell or take on projects where I could experiment and be freer.

“When I first came to the US I was too afraid to be an artist,” Maryam says. “When I first saw your work I realized there was a way I could do both.” Courtesy of Maryam Turkey

Experimenting is always a vulnerable, personal process. At the same time you seem to have ambitions—you’re also an entrepreneur who has her own business. You build this dreamy, experimental world where you’re trying new things and have a down-to-earth side where you need to be professional.

I know what it takes to make public work alongside professional exhibitions. It’s very hard to do that. How do you combine those two worlds?

It’s not easy, but my goal has always been to chase freedom. A child usually has some sort of freedom, playing outside and having a childhood experience. My childhood was extremely oppressive, especially as a girl. I was also living during a war, so I was stuck inside a lot.

When I first came to the US I was too afraid to be an artist. I ended up studying industrial design instead so I could get a job and pay my student loans. You were one of the rare inspirations I looked up to who did both design and art. When I first saw your work I realized there was a way I could do both.

“Intellectual Heritage” by Maartan Baas for the Utrecht Public Library in the Netherlands. Photo by Maarten Noordijk

I’m constantly asking myself the question, “How can I be free?” That’s the main goal I’m after. Having financial stability is a way of freedom. It’s a constant battle of trying to balance practicality and a world where I can be completely free and in touch with my inner child.

I’m in a city where there’s a lot of opportunity and resources. When you don’t have any of that, and then suddenly you have that, you see a playground of opportunities. For a long time I thought my dream was to have a gallery so I could be financially safe. But the more I worked with galleries the more I felt there were very few that remain true to the artist.

A gallery often forces you to have a recognizable style. They want you to be reliable in what you’re doing. But for an artist who wants to jump around from one thing to the other, it’s not easy to pinpoint. The energy should be trusted rather than the framework.

I agree. I’m living off grants, prize funding, and scholarships. It’s terrifying not to follow a path that someone else builds for you. But following my intuition is the right thing to do, and the universe always surprises me with rewards I never thought could exist. Being true to my inner self is a reward.

Recently I started reading this book by Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. I recommend it. I want to read you an excerpt. I’d love to know if you can relate to it or elaborate on it:

Our thoughts, feelings, processes, and unconscious beliefs have an energy that is hidden in the work. This unseen, unmeasurable force gives each piece its magnetism. A completed project is only made up of our intention and our experiments around it. Remove intention and all that’s left is the ornamental shell. Though the artist may have a number of goals and motivations, there is only one intention. This is the grand gesture of the work. It is not an exercise of thought, a goal to be set, or a means of commodification. It is a truth that lives inside you. Through your living it, that truth becomes embedded in the work. If the work doesn’t represent who you are and what you’re living, how can it hold an energetic charge? (Penguin Press, 2023.)

Excerpt from THE CREATIVE ACT, published by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2023 by Rick Rubin

When I read that it validated this feeling I’m going after. I really believe our inner being is a ball of energy. The mediums we have—be it sculpture, design, music, dance—are mediums to use as tools of expression. I know you’ve said, “Having a style is like being in jail,” but I want to elaborate on that. Having one medium is also like being in jail. You can have one medium, follow one path, and spend your whole life crafting this beautiful, incredible, useful thing. But I really believe we are more than that.

“Real Time XL: The Artist” features a life-sized video performance of Maarten working as if from inside the clock itself, continually drawing and redrawing the correct time. Photo by Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt

It’s a beautiful text. The quote you gave me credit for is actually by Anthon Beeke, who is a graphic designer in the Netherlands, but I totally agree with that idea of being in jail. Sometimes I wish I could focus on one material and do a little less in every other scope. Though that’s not so practical, because if you’re not making money, then it’s not the most efficient way.

I feel the text is saying art is in your DNA. Whatever your DNA produces is automatically what you are and what you represent. It will always somehow take on your style or signature.

It’s important to stay true to that intuition and voice inside that leads that way. I find it more and more difficult the older I get, or the more responsibilities I have. That cliché of childhood that is free-spirited. When you get older you lose a bit of that spontaneity. And of course that’s the subject of my work, and I challenge that.

“Whatever your DNA produces is automatically what you are and what you represent. It will always somehow take on your style or signature.”

When I chose design I chose it based on the fear of not making it as an artist. The type of stuff I did early on you can tell I was trying to fit in or be a designer. I wasn’t satisfied with the work and had an existential crisis. That’s when I decided to do this residency—to make art and not expect anything out of it.

My industrial design practice taught me to be a sculptor because I’m supposed to understand materials. I remember when we were in college, we would go to the sculpture department and make fun of their craftsmanship because they didn’t have the resources we did as industrial designers.

It’s funny how people like to categorize what this is and give it one name, but it’s much more complex and beautiful than that. Every creation we do, even though it doesn’t make sense in the moment, might carry on and help this other creation tomorrow.

When I started focusing on art I had an art residency at the World Trade Center during the pandemic. At that time I also had a full-time design job. Afterward I would spend my time on my art.

With the pandemic many designers I knew weren’t creating anything. But I had a studio in a skyscraper and plenty of time, so I threw myself into my art every day without any specific goal in mind. The outcome was more satisfying than any design work I had done before.

That reminds me of a video I saw of Frank Zappa, the musician. He said that when he plays guitar, he doesn’t play it like most guitarists. Most guitarists have a riff, and they play it exactly as it should be, hitting every note the correct way.

He said that he has the skills to play the guitar, but he focuses on capturing the moment with his skills. He channels his energy into the guitar, using his technique to perform in that specific moment, rather than just technically repeating what he already knows.

In music it’s so obvious to me how it works. I realized my love for music when I started living in New York because the scene is huge. You can walk into a bar and see amazing musicians playing.

One moment that blew my mind was watching musicians perform and then learning they hadn’t rehearsed at all. It was an improv session—they were making it up on the spot, yet they had this synergy with each other. That inspired me to trust in the feeling that will come and not over-plan or overthink what I’m doing.

I have a project in Portugal with a friend where we purchased a large plot of land. We plan to develop it into spaces for artists in residence, workshops, tiny houses, and greenhouses. The land spans 13 hectares, so we refer to it as our 13-hectare playground. You should come to Portugal to build something there.

That would be an honor! Do you have things built in it already?

Not yet. We just bought it two years ago and are still working on the on the basics. The land has a few ruins on it. It’s a huge project—just having the basic infrastructure takes a lot of time.

Drawing inspiration from her childhood in Baghdad, where mud structures bore the imprint of human touch, “Deconstructed” echoes textures that fascinated Maryam as a child. Courtesy of Maryam Turkey

The rocks on the island here sort of look like ruins. They’re hundreds of years old in different shapes and sizes, and they have wrinkles that make them resemble super old, wrinkled people. They almost look like body parts that exploded. They have so much energy, so I collected them because I want to be true to the location and find a way to incorporate these stones into my work.

There are also lots of cats here, so my designs might include benches that double as houses for cats, where people can sit, pet, and feed them. I’ve noticed that cats here gravitate toward the shade since it’s very sunny. When I had these ideas I realized my designs should be true to where I am, solving problems and connecting dots in the moment.

I don’t know how I come up with my design ideas. Usually either I have an idea or I don’t. The word inspiration literally means “spirit,” to find spirit for something and transfer an energy.

I feel inspired by energy and people. Interestingly, people sometimes ask how I got inspired to make my project “Real Time.” The answer is that I saw the cheesiest commercial advertisement while waiting for my luggage at the airport.

“People sometimes ask how I got inspired to make my project Real Time,” Maarten says. “The answer is that I saw the cheesiest commercial advertisement while waiting for my luggage at the airport.” Above, Maarten Baas, “Sweepers Clock” and “720 Children Clock” installation view, Voorlinden, “It’s About Time.” Photo by Antoine van Kaam

I was looking at the screens, saw a bad advertisement, and my mind drifted. That’s when I came up with the idea of making a video with a clock. Even cheesy things can be inspirational in the end.

You were in a state of being, not thinking. I think inspiration is about not forcing something, just allowing yourself to “be,” and maybe even embracing a bit of boredom.

Maybe our job is to allow ourselves to be bored sometimes. Some of my best sketches happen when I’m on the subway or waiting somewhere and not wanting to be on my phone. I have my sketchbook with me and just start drawing without thinking about what it’ll be. The best ideas come when you’re not trying to do anything specific.

maartenbaas.com

maryamturkey.com

A version of this article originally appeared in Sixtysix Issue 12. 

Chris Force: How did this project come to be? Was there a brief for what they were looking to accomplish?

Inge Sempé: Our only direction was to use extrusion, try to learn about it a bit, and then do what we wanted.

Have you worked with extrusion before?

I haven’t, but it’s quite an easy technique and not too demanding from a financial point of view. I had to learn more about the way shapes should be made so there wouldn’t be deformation. Anything we didn’t know was explained to us by an engineer.

“If you have a full understanding you will shift the project,” Inga says. “If you don’t understand, it will shift you.” Photo by Chris Force

“Sometimes doing things that are painful help you realize you want another life because work is so important.”

The big talking point about this material is that it’s 100% post-consumer waste; it can be recycled an infinite number of times. How important is this material from Hydro?

I care about the material. To me it’s always interesting to meet with a company that has a very strong knowledge of materials because that’s what I’m interested in. The techniques are the most interesting and the most important to know. If you have a full understanding you will shift the project. If you don’t understand, it will shift you.

Have you ever said “no” to a project because the materials required weren’t being considered from a sustainability standpoint?

That’s a delicate subject because it’s hard to be a designer and to survive. It’s a very badly paid job. Sometimes you can’t say, “I won’t do that,” but I mostly work with high-quality companies. That protects me also from ending up with badly produced objects. We aren’t at the factory during production so we can’t check everything. As designers we don’t have that much power. Of course, if they say it’s a 100% recycled material, that’s great. But we don’t really know—we have to rely on trust. My personal trust comes from working with high-quality companies and familiar family companies for production.

We say we can do everything with wood, but then it’s a question of, which wood? Some woods you shouldn’t be cutting down anymore. It’s easy to say you’re designing very “cleanly.” It’s easy to look good. But it’s not easy to fully know what we’re using.

Through uniting with designers, Hydro shows how scrap can be turned into pristine looking design objects. Photo by Einar Aslaksen, courtesy of Hydro

How often do you see a product that doesn’t turn out how you expected?

There are so many designers working on a project, usually it happens between two to five years. We work for so long on each project that it doesn’t happen. We have many steps for production. It’s not as if we’re sending sketches to China and then it shows up in a container—at least not the companies I work with. Though sometimes it can happen if there is a problem finding a material. For example, the price of copper and brass has increased so much. The key is working for companies you can trust. You have to preserve the image of your brand.

Is there any material you haven’t worked in that you hope to in the future?

I had never worked with extrusions—that’s why I was really interested. I don’t use many materials I’ve never worked with. The important thing for me is working with companies that have the will to collaborate, who are interesting, and with whom you can have a dialogue. That ensures the product will be high quality.

Is there a type of company or project you would love to do?

I would like to design some pencils, some hand tools, and some gardening things that are interesting. I’m not sure what any of that would look like. I never have any ideas before working on a project. Even when I begin to work on a project, for a long time I don’t have any idea.

How do you start then? What’s your typical first step?

Typically sketches. It depends. Now I use my iPad when designing fabrics. For certain projects I prefer to create it on my iPad because it’s easy to enlarge and design thread by thread. I would never be able to do that by hand.

Hydro’s exhibition 100R at Milan Design Week. Designers have a powerful role to play in accelerating the green transition, as up to 80 percent of a product’s environmental impact is decided at the drawing board. Photo by Einar Aslaksen, courtesy of Hydro

In your career has there ever been a big mistake or turn you wish you hadn’t made?

I should have begun earlier, but in the past I was afraid. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to collaborate with people. I wasn’t daring enough because I’m very lazy. After doing some bad jobs and working for other designers for awhile, which I hated, I decided to make a change. Sometimes doing things that are painful help you realize you want another life because work is so important.

When young people are asking you for advice, what do you normally tell them?

They don’t need to be trustful in themselves. They should not have self-confidence. I think it’s ridiculous to tell young people they should be self-confident. Some self-confident young designers end up producing things that are very bad. The only thing to be sure of is if you want to be part of the design space—and for what reasons. Is it because you want to be in a magazine? If so you might want to do another job. Is it because you want to go to factories, meet some people, understand techniques and the needs of a company? Do you want to create long lasting products? Then yes, do it.

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Pooneh Ghana is a music photographer and videographer who has captured images of musicians including Olivia Rodrigo, Tame Impala, and Beck. Born and raised in San Antonio and coming of age in Austin, Texas, she began pursuing her passion for photography by taking Polaroids at concerts when she was in high school. Currently, she is touring with singer-songwriter Noah Kahan.

Here the photographers meet to discuss their work and process for the first time. —Gianna Annunzio

“When people ask me for a Martin Parr photo, that’s all I can take,” Martin says. “I have quite a bright color palette, use a bit of flash, and it’s there.” Cannes, France, 2018. Commissioned by Gucci. Photo courtesy Martin Parr / Magnum Photos

Gianna Annunzio: Martin, your work is well known for capturing spontaneous moments of public life, though your recent book features organized, posed fashion photography. Is there a difference in your approach here versus your typical capture of organic moments?

Martin Parr: The big difference is when I’m shooting fashion, I can move the models around. When I’m doing my own documentary work, it’s me that moves so I can get the right angle. There’s really nothing more to it.

Pooneh Ghana: The preparation for both live music and portraiture work brings the same feeling of excitement when I plan it, but the preparation for it is so different. With portraiture work you’re in complete control of the setup, the location, what the model does, how they feel in the situation. It’s all in your hands.

With live music, you’re throwing yourself into the situation and you’re not in control of it. You have to figure out how to document what’s going on in a way that resonates through the photo. Really for both, but the process is so different. For me it’s just as exciting and makes me just as nervous, in a good way. I love shooting in both worlds because I don’t want to just do live music or portraiture. I want to be good at all of them. That’s my approach to music photography in general.

Martin: Do you ever get bored shooting the same thing every night?

Even if the venues look the same, Pooneh believes there’s something special about each shooting location. Above, Cage the Elephant by Pooneh Ghana

Pooneh: Things can get repetitive. I’ve been on tour with Noah Kahan for four months, and I could easily let myself become a cog in the system and think, “OK, I know exactly what’s going to happen. I’m going to shoot the same thing every night.” Or I could push myself and say, “You know what? Today I’m going to shoot on my Mamiya 72.”

Or “Today I’m going to get some stunning portraits of Noah.” On tour you’re in such a good position because every day you’re in a different city. Even if the venues look the same there’s something special about each location. I try to take advantage of that the best I can. I’m also not completely jaded by this industry yet. I still have that drive to shoot.

Martin: Do you shoot photos of the city you’re in?

Pooneh: I try to. I always have a camera on me. Walking around when we have free time is a lot more entertaining than sitting in a venue for eight hours. Whether you’re doing it consciously or not, just having a camera puts you in that mindset. That’s what I did years before I was doing this full-time. Especially shooting on film, as you know, you’re thinking a little more about what you’re doing.

I remember The White Stripes had this peppermint-colored Holga camera they were selling when I was 15. It sold out immediately. That got me into the Lomography world.

From there I was buying cheap Holgas and Vilias, taking them to shows and shooting. At the time it was me just having fun on film. I think learning on film was an important foundation for how I shoot and my “look” now. Even in the way I developed my skills as a photographer since I’m not technically trained. Everything I learned was on my own. Shooting on film was a huge part in that journey.

Gianna: How do you each typically choose your subjects?

Martin: Most of the work I do is my own work. I’ll take photos at certain events I want to go to. I’ve built up this very extensive archive of work in Britain over the last 50 years, so I’m adding to that all the time. I’ve done a few music albums, too—Richard Hawley, Madness, artists like that. With my fashion book, obviously you get a fashion assignment. If it’s editorial you have a bit more freedom. If it’s a commercial shoot you get paid a lot more, but you have less freedom. The more you get paid the more boring the job.

Pooneh: Yes, it’s kind of comical. Sometimes you get these huge jobs with huge paychecks. Then you go there and you realize, “Wait, this is actually really easy.” In the music world a lot of choosing a subject centers around being at festivals or being around new people all the time. When it’s not planned I do a lot of observing my surroundings. It’s a mix of both. I think you just know a good shot when you see it a lot of times.

I’m curious how you pick your subjects, Martin, because you’ve been doing this for so long. How do you choose shooting something that’s interesting to you?

“The more you get paid the more boring the job.”

Martin: There are certain things. I do different chapters of work in the UK. I’ll pick a new subject matter and add to the archive I already have. I’ll be going to some music festivals next weekend; there’s one in Bristol.

Pooneh: That’s cool. I can’t wait to see that. It’s fun losing yourself in the masses that way, while still capturing everything. I would love to document you at a music festival. Just a day in the life of you going to see Lana Del Rey or buying a corn dog.

Martin: I was in Glastonbury the last two years.

Pooneh: I was there two years ago! Glastonbury with Martin—that would be sick.

Martin: You’d just see me taking pictures. If someone will commission that, fair enough. We’ll do it.

Color abounds in this shot from the Gucci Cruise 2019 Lookbook. From Fashion Faux Parr by Martin Parr, with essays by Patrick Grant and Tabitha Simmons. Phaidon

Pooneh: Along the lines of shooting on film—awhile back I did an album shoot with a British band called The Big Moon. There was a super bloom happening in LA and they wanted to shoot on Aerochrome, which I’d never shot on up until that point.

I did research on how it works and the different filters you need to use, and the shots came out amazing. It’s crazy how sensitive that film is. The slightest under or over exposure on it and the photo is completely blue. In some ways it is a mistake, but ultimately those ended up being amazing shots. It’s one of my favorite shoots because I went in so fearful, but I went for it. They put their trust in me, and we ended up getting some of my favorite shots ever.

Martin: Doesn’t that film turn everything green into red, too?

Pooneh: It does. Everything green becomes a red-pink depending on what filter you use. On eBay each roll was about $45. Then I had to send it to Europe to get processed; it was a whole thing. People try to make knockoff versions of it, but real Aerochrome is tough to find.

Olivia Rodrigo in front of an audience during her European tour. Photo by Pooneh Ghana

Martin: I’m useless at anecdotes from my shooting days. The work just comes naturally. When people ask me for a Martin Parr photo, that’s all I can take. When I’m out on a shoot I just do what I know best. I have quite a bright color palette, use a bit of flash, and it’s there. It’s very simple.

Pooneh: The most important thing I have is my perspective. People who follow your work want to see it through your eyes.

Martin: The introduction of digital cameras changed the work for me. I switched over in 2008, when the quality of those cameras had begun to increase. Since then they’ve only continued to improve. Now I have an iPhone 15 and I seriously shoot on it. The quality is so amazing—it can see more than you can see.

I don’t know what I would do without digital technology. Nowadays I can get a 5D file that’s better than my old Mamiya 7 files. It’s sharper and, of course, we make them all look analog. There’s a certain look with film that we find very attractive, so we process it in a way where you wouldn’t know it’s digital. This way I can impersonate film and keep very happy.

I’m amazed you’re still with film. Do you think you’ll ever go digital?

Above left: Fashion Week, Paris, France, 2013. Above right: Fashion Week, Paris, France, 2018. Commissioned by Gucci. From Fashion Faux Parr by Martin Parr, with essays by Patrick Grant and Tabitha Simmons. Phaidon

Pooneh: I do shoot digital as well; I need to with my live music work. When I’m allowed to, when the film is covered, I love doing most of my BTS and portrait work on film.

Martin: I’m relieved to hear you do digital as well. I’m worried about you just doing film because it’s so slow. You have to process the film, make contacts, select the image, scan it. It takes forever.

Pooneh: Even though it’s slower, I think ultimately the result is worth whatever speed I lose. Everyone has a certain romantic idea around shooting on analog. It’s making such a huge comeback. Musicians and clients are now requesting film and Super 8 footage. It’s a psychological thing—I shoot differently on it. I enjoy the process of it. The rush service at the lab helps a lot too.

Sebastian Murphy of Swedish punk band Viagra Boys pulls an impromptu stage antic. Photo by Pooneh Ghana

Martin: I’ve had many years with film. I look back on my black and white days, and my color negative days with great affection. I’m just glad to have moved on. But we continue to find old pictures, scan them, and load them into the archive. We try to keep them alive as well. “The Last Resort,” which I shot in the ’80s, was color negative. That was really the breakthrough in terms of my career. I owe a lot to what film has done for me.

Things like the selfie stick from my “Death by Selfie” series, they’re now in decline. They’re history. Years ago selfie sticks were ubiquitous. I like the fact that I’ve documented the world with selfie sticks. It’s always a bit absurd. If I’m doing work on tourism everyone’s got an iPhone. People still take selfies, but not so much with the stick.

Pooneh: Maybe I should put my Mamiya 7II on a selfie stick and shoot myself on film.

Martin: My God, I don’t think a selfie stick could handle the weight. Photographing people shopping in supermarkets in the ’80s was quite a revelation. I look back and they all look very dated now, even though they’re taken in sort of a bright color. So that’s interesting. That’s my one thing I really value with the benefit of hindsight.

A black and white silhouette captures Death Grips in a unique live show moment. “With live music, you’re throwing yourself into the situation and you’re not in control of it,” Pooneh says. Photo by Pooneh Ghana

Pooneh: I really love that style of shooting. When I’m acting as a fly on the wall on tour with an artist, I love lifting the veil on who people think their favorite musician is.

I think about when I was 15 and had photos of The Strokes on my wall. Those photos subconsciously influenced me so much. Right now, as I’m on tour with Noah, I want to take those types of photos for his fans. Even if it’s just a photo of him playing golf or in an ice bath. Those are the shots people want to see.

Martin: I’m similarly capturing my relationship to the UK across a long period of shooting—though it’s inevitably a set of pictures about Britain in particular. That’s part of my legacy. I want people to take away whatever they’d like from my photos; I assume someone out there is enjoying it. I’m just very happy to have an audience.

Fashion Faux Parr (Phaidon Press, $59.95) showcases Martin Parr’s collection of 250 fashion photography images for the first time in one book. Includes essays by Patrick Grant and Tabitha Simmons.

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A version of this article originally appeared as the cover story to Sixtysix Issue 12. 

Chris Force: I’m curious about the bravery it takes to consider yourself a poet. The idea of writing my most vulnerable feelings in fragmented, unorthodox ways and sharing them with the world to put food on my table is unimaginable.

Yrsa Daley-Ward: I don’t know that it does. You have to become well-versed in doing a bunch of stuff. I’m from a Jamaican immigrant mother who knew what it was like to work two jobs and also be studying. She was studying for her degree right up until 10 years before she died. She was always striving.

I have had to adopt a mentality of layering one thing over the other over the other. I’m acting, I’m speaking somewhere, I’m writing my book, and I’m thinking of pitching another one—and that is the way. It’s impossible for me to sit and wait for the muse to strike. I don’t have that luxury. Whether it’s modeling or acting, I have to become good at doing a lot of things. When I’m flying somewhere I’m also writing or taking a commission.

On the other hand I’ve also created great pockets of peace I have to be intentional about. I spend the majority of my time by myself. I’m a poet, and yes, this is how I live, but it’s also a bunch of other things. It’s working with brands. It’s also doing things I can fit words around; you have to get creative with it.

Tell me about these pockets of peace.

As I get older I can’t override my body. Sometimes I have to after a long flight, but I really try to be inside of my body. I’m not someone who will force myself to be super social. I don’t know how to do that anyway; I’m more of a one-on-one person. I meditate and I make sure I take care of myself. Sometimes it’s as simple as sleeping a lot. I take time to rest and don’t force myself to be around what drains me.

Are you ever hard on yourself to be better—or to be as successful as your peers? To make more money or be more financially successful?

You can’t compare yourself to someone else. Everyone is on a totally different trajectory and comes from a different background, so I don’t have those fears. I love when people are brilliant. That energizes me. I don’t want to have done my best work. My best work should always be this thing I’m aiming toward.

As far as making more money, of course. As a poet I want to make sure I have some stability. This fear of not having enough, or not knowing how much you’re going to make, seems to be part of the artist’s journey. It completely limits your creativity because you’re out worrying about that. It isn’t a peaceful place to be in.

THE MIDDLE FINGER POEM

By Yrsa Daley-Ward

You say that I don’t seem myself.

These days are long and revealing,

so every time I see one through, I grin.

Every time I make it home, I dance.

Every time I’m up again after being down, down, down;

I’m beating the odds.

Every time I don’t give up,

it’s worthy of celebration. Every time I write a poem,

it’s a bloody miracle. Of course, the me you knew before

is less available. She is keeping herself awake.

She is salt bathing and

forest walking and turning off her phone.

She is learning herself

and teaching herself piano. See the headlines.

See the persistent, awful news,

see the updates no one wants to hear or know about.

See the numbers – have you seen the numbers?

See the terrorists they will never call terrorists.

See the telling dark of the system.

See my beautiful body; offensive. My gleaming skin;

a problem. Who can still be themselves these days?

Isn’t the self a fine art composite,

an odd mosaic

a strange and growing story?

I no longer have time to lie to you.

Why do you think the cultural understanding or acceptance of poetry hasn’t evolved much despite social media poems and hip-hop being so massively popular?

I agree, I don’t think poetry is considered very mainstream. It’s cool in some places but not all. If you think of Kendrick Lamar, he won the Pulitzer Prize. Music has an entry point for everybody. It’s all in how it’s captured. I blame the school system as well for teaching us closed-shop poetry that people don’t understand instead of accessible poetry. When poets make very accessible work, people like it.

I found your books very accessible, but I’m sure there were layers or levels of your work I wasn’t picking up on.

I doubt it. It’s all there to see. I don’t think in that way. I don’t write in that way. What you see is what’s on the page.

Do you ever think about how you might bring your talents and work to different audiences?

One thing I like to do is perform my poetry with musicians. Sometimes it’s acoustic, sometimes it’s electronic music. Sometimes I just put the words over a beat and create different ways of letting the work travel.

I imagine you don’t have the opportunity to digest or live with the work you’re publishing in your newsletter the same way you do when you’re writing a book. It seems so personal and intimate at times. Your thoughts must be flying off your fingers and out to the world. Has that been different from the process of writing your books?

I’m a patient-impatient person. I’m patient on the face of it; I’m not someone who reads into something after it’s been done. The newsletter satisfies how I feel in the moment. I freewrite and put it out there. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It goes into people’s inboxes, and they can read it or not read it. I try not to obsess over it. It’s different than printed matter, which takes about two years from start to finish. For me that is not the most enjoyable process, to be honest. It’s lovely to have the “click” and the pleasure of having it out in the newsletter. The thing isn’t even edited; it’s just a moment, and then it’s gone, like the weeks. They just go. I don’t see the point of worrying about this stuff in the bigger scheme of things. I just want to share something real.

Have you always had that confidence? Or is that something you had to learn?

I don’t know if it’s confidence, it’s just not where I place value. I love writing. I know that it’s imperfect; I’m just learning in public. Maybe I’ll keep getting better support, or maybe I’ll keep strengthening. I’m happy to show that process.

You have worked on some major projects, most famously with Beyoncé. What did you learn through that level of collaboration?

I’m excited by people who are married to their craft and care about every aspect of it. It’s something I aspire to—that kind of attention to detail. Beyoncé has that, and it’s so evident. She’s there for every decision that gets made. When you’re up close to that you can’t help but want to be even more of yourself. It’s easy to go into spaces where you think that’s happening, but it’s not; it’s actually loads of middlemen. The whole thing happened so quickly as well. Not the work itself, but from hearing I was going to be doing that, to being in LA and doing it—it felt like two minutes. It was a great learning experience.

Who else are you reading right now?

I love Jeanette Winterson because of the genre-bending aspect of it. I’m reading one of my favorite books by her again called Written on the Body. I’m also re-listening to this book by Annie Dillard called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which when I’m traveling helps me sleep. The imagery is so dense, it helps me drop into myself. And I’m reading Roald Dahl.

That’s unexpected. How did that end up on your shelf?

As a kid it was the first time I had seen someone embed poetry into a story and make it better. I like when things fizz and melt into each other. I think it’s interesting. Roald Dahl was one of the first people I came across who did that.

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Theresa Marx is a photographer and cofounder of the European design studio Project 213A. Her photography, characterized by its intimate and expressive style, complements her role at Project 213A, where she collaborates on creating furniture and home accessories with a focus on sustainability and traditional craftsmanship.

Here the two designers meet for the first time to discuss their work, as Luca begins their conversation sharing the path that led to his career. —Gianna Annunzio

Luca Nichetto: I think back to when I started. I was quite lucky; I didn’t decide to become a designer. It was something natural because I was quite good at drawing when I was a child. My parents allowed me to study at the Art Institute of Venice. During the summer my classmates and I would knock on the doors of different factories in Murano to sell our drawings.

Theresa Marx: Was that your idea, or was the school pushing you? 

Luca: It was our idea. We had a folder full of drawings. Drawing and being able to make some money to have fun during the summertime with my friends was a necessity. They were easy things to do.

As I was deciding what to study at university, I discovered there was a new industrial design facility in Venice. I decided to give it a shot, and I maintained the ritual of knocking on the door of the factories during that time.

I’m from Murano, a little island with 4,000 people living there, and 99% of the people are involved with the glass industry.

For me, seeing a drawing become an object was like going to buy a piece of bread—there wasn’t a big difference. My grandfather was a glassblower, and my other grandfather made chandeliers. My mom decorated glass.

What I can see now after 20 years of doing this job, what the Murano glass industry taught me from day one—even when I was knocking on doors—is the importance of building a relationship. You need to be able to build relationships with people who are there to make your idea become a real thing, especially if you are in front of a 1,000-degree oven to create the object.

You need to find a way for a master glassblower to interpret your ideas. You need to build a team in that moment, and your decision-making process needs to be quick.

The shape of glass can change in a second. You need to understand when the right moment is to tell them to stop or try a little more—to respect the people who are doing the best they can to interpret your idea, plus respect the nature of the material.

Being fast in making decisions and accepting compromise is something I still use every day, even when I’m designing with other materials and product typologies.

And for you?

Theresa: I have two other business partners in Project 213A; Jurgita Dileviciute is based in Portugal, she’s a footwear designer, and the other, Clement Deboeuf, is based in Paris. He has a background in cinema. We started all of this in lockdown on Zoom.

There was a moment I thought was really sweet when we started. Our idea was to focus on smaller items like vases so we could create a stock and then get into shops to get our name out there. When we showed up at the ceramic factory for the first time, we realized it was huge. They had all these people and massive kilns—sometimes even bigger than a London bedroom. We felt like we were on the best playground the world had to offer. The owner of the factory took a liking to us. I think he was like, “Those crazy girls, what are they thinking? They’re coming here with their weird designs.”

We created the shapes with him. We were really hands-on, and then we made molds from that. When we gave him the first drawing it came back perfect, but it wasn’t what we wanted. There needed to be character. I think on the fifth design he did for us he said, “Look, I’ve made it a bit irregular!” It was nice to see that he understood what we were after, and that we wanted to look different than products he does for other clients.

Luca: When I was younger I had the chance to spend a couple of days with artist Enzo Mari. He came to Venice to visit the Biennale. I was just starting out; I think I opened my studio two years prior.

There was a curator from Milan, a good friend Beppe Finessi, who loved to introduce the old masters to the younger generation. We had the chance to spend time together. I remember one thing Enzo told me. He said, “You need to think that every time you’re designing something, you’re building community. You might not meet everybody in this community, but thanks to your idea, people will have a job and invest their time to support your creativity in many ways.” 

Now there is this weird idea where everybody wants to have everything quick. They’re about not investing time. Even with online shopping—you see something, you buy it, and you have it at home.

“The shape of glass can change in a second. You need to to respect the people who are doing the best they can to interpret your idea.”

We’re losing that precious feeling of when there’s something done a certain way you need to wait. Not losing time by waiting but waiting because people care, and it’s well made. I’m living in the country of IKEA and H&M, so they teach the opposite. From my perspective that’s completely against the idea of educating people to understand the value of craft.

There is a market, of course, for custom product, but that is almost a target demographic that rejects being part of a mass production system. They have enough money that they can customize their own things.

I just came back from ICFF, and I love what Claire and Odile, the two French women who are running the show, are trying to do. But for me it was not a design fair. It was a craft fair. There was craft everywhere. We need to understand the difference between design and craft, and if they can go together or not.

Elongated bubble sticks give shape to a flock of glass water bubbles, featured in the Hermès boutique in Hong Kong. Courtesy of Nichetto Studio

Theresa: When it comes to the smaller companies who start something like this I see that very often, and I think it’s also something I see in fashion. They influence the bigger ones. 

With your IKEA example, I understand its mass produced. Do you know the classic shelf they have? It has a lot of squares inside and some people use it as a room divider. I had one I bought secondhand for my studio a few years ago, and then I wanted to get another one. When I received it, it was slightly different dimensions.

I didn’t understand why, because it’s a classic; it’s always been around. Then I found this article that said IKEA decided to make that specific product reduced by around 5 millimeters, and it saved a crazy amount of wood and CO2 emissions. I was really proud of IKEA. They got my thumbs up on that.

Luca: If they want to be sustainable they need to shut down their business. That is the reality. If they’re talking so much about sustainability, they need to reinvent their business model. I think there is a layer of hypocrisy. Without being so mean to IKEA, or other bigger companies like that, they are providing what people desire, so the problem is not only on them. The problem is on us.

I remember when I was a child speaking with people around 50 years old. Their curiosity to learn and their know-how was much higher than it is today. They were respected for their knowledge. Right now there is no form of that respect because, in the end, older people like me don’t have that knowledge.

Theresa hopes to eventually reach a point where she is paid for her editorial work. “They’ll give me a budget because they believe in what I’ve done.” Photo by Theresa Marx

We can find any information we want in a much shorter time. We’ve become so spoiled and arrogant that we seek and receive without really learning. I’m generalizing now, but in the end there’s a reflection of that in what the customer is buying from us. We need to find a way to trigger their curiosity.

We are in this interesting situation where design reflects society. Sometimes design can be pioneering and show where society should go—at least when design was political in the ’60s and the ’70s. But it’s not anymore. There is no more artist utopia to idealize so strongly you can move in that direction. Everything has become a little bit cosmetic.

Theresa: Social media culture is so instant. You can keep scrolling and scrolling. If I plan a photo shoot or our next Instagram post, we always need to be aware of this. We’re terrified of being lost in the algorithm. We’ll work so hard on a product and put money and effort into photographing it. You put a little bit of yourself into it, you’re proud of your work.

Then you get 10 likes and you automatically think it’s not good. But then I also think, “Let’s be stubborn. Keep on posting it.’ In the end someone will like it—if they see it. I speak with a lot of people about this, and everybody seems to have the same opinion.

Luca: It makes sense. You’re scared of the algorithm, but at the same time talking about educating customers. At this point we shouldn’t even use the word “customer.” It would be better to use the word “users.”

The Troag LED suspension lamp by Luca Nichetto for Foscarini displays linear, suspended lines that emanate a sense of natural familiarity. Courtesy of Nichetto Studio

Theresa: That’s the other thing. The moment you have a customer, they already like your product. It’s more about making people aware of the fact that you even exist.

Luca: Exactly. I think you also need to be good at receiving a “no” from the other side. Even something like Tinder is totally a window on our society. That app is taking out all the insecurity you need to have when you are approaching something unknown, finding your creativity to approach that unknown, and being ready to receive a “no.”

Now you’re just swiping back and forth—you like or you don’t like, in three seconds. Those things make everybody untrained to build relationships of any kind. The perception of what we’re doing as designers has completely changed along with it.

Theresa: It’s a new time. In the photography world there’s this huge fear AI is going to take over. I personally don’t have this fear because I feel people need to start seeing it for what it is. It’s a tool, and it can only be as good as the person using it. The only way it could replace me is because I haven’t used it right. I might not necessarily be the person physically doing it, but it was my idea.

When I went to university I needed to save money to photocopy books in the library. These days there are photos available of everything online. A friend of mine who is a tutor recently showed me one of his student’s sketchbooks. It was a completely different thing than when I went to university. I cut out everything and drew over my photocopies, which is cool and good, but it was very of “that time.”

“Putting a little bit of extra effort into something always works.”

I also know certain values don’t necessarily disappear. At my university there were categories like secondary and first research. First research would be seeing someone on a cool bike, and you get inspired to do a bike. Maybe you start drawing it and taking pictures of it. The secondary research would be thinking, “What’s the concept behind it? How can I push this? Can I draw the bike with three wheels?”

If that’s good, and if you’ve done your proper homework, it will be a new and interesting product. If you manage to find a tool to communicate what you want to do, be it AI, be it old-school fashion drawing, it’s just a part of progress.

Luca: In the past they used to say if you are a very strong talent, you will pop up anyway. I’m not sure about that anymore. The quality of the output is so high, and the decision-makers are so low in their know-how, it’s very complicated to discover talent.

If we’re talking about the geniuses, they don’t need anything. They will pop up regardless. But if we’re talking about the good ones, the talented ones in this huge pot, I think coming up will be quite tough. You need to do very good PR for yourself. Things in the past that you didn’t need to have, you now need to have.

“You need to prove yourself nonstop,” Theresa says. “It seems like it’s on a different scale, commercial and editorial work.” Above, Theresa Marx for Blanc magazine

Theresa: I think I slightly disagree. I read something that said, “The successful artist we know is the artist that knows how to market himself.” If you look back, Picasso was amazing. But why? Because he was a flamboyant man who lived the way he did.

That was part of marketing back in the day. A lot of female designers who worked for highly celebrated designers are now starting to pop up as we look back at their talents. Nowadays the doors are more open to everyone. But still, you have to market yourself to get where you want to be.

Luca: For sure, but if Picasso was not a good painter—even if he was able to market himself—he would never succeed. While art directing at some companies I review the proposals of other colleagues who are quite well-known. Sometimes I ask myself how a person is so famous for the quality of the job they provide because I was on the other side.

The company I’m working for on that specific project says, “Yeah, but he’s famous. We need to produce it anyway.” Why do we need to produce for someone famous when there’s this young fella that is completely unknown, with a better proposal? I think there’s still a lot of confusion on how to discover the right talent.

“In the design industry they’re pushing to launch products at the same speed as fashion,” Luca says. “They don’t understand that if you’re doing that you’re killing the market.” Above, the Twenty-Five dining table by De La Espada Atelier and the Sela dining armchair by Luca Nichetto. Photo by Sanda Vuckovic

In the design industry they’re also pushing to launch products at the same speed as fashion. They don’t understand that if you’re doing that you’re killing the market. I’m not saying everything is bad. It’s also an incredible time to jump out of a crisis with brilliant ideas.

Normally when there is crisis you need to be even more creative to jump out. I hope in this moment there will be someone coming out with a cool, interesting idea that can be revolutionary in moving up.

Theresa: I could go down a rabbit hole of why certain things are becoming more and more unfair. The structure of how certain universities function feels more like a factory of trying to get people on board to get fees. It isn’t necessarily a question of how much talent is behind them, it’s just because they’re a well-paying student.

Luca: I think that’s the main problem. I’ve had that experience teaching at my former university in Italy and doing workshops in universities all around Europe and the US. It’s pretty clear that most of the students are rich in a way.

The scholarships they offer to talented students are very few compared to the ones who are paying. This creates a crazy number of people who think it’s easy to jump into the market and start running their business later on.

Theresa: There were a few people I graduated with who I felt drowned. They were mega talented but didn’t have the tools, or the right situation, or the support of someone believing in them and pulling funding together to get something beautiful going. The market is oversaturated as well. When I graduated I think there was one position for 100 students. Hence I became a photographer outside of my career.

“Our idea was to focus on smaller items so we could create a stock, and then get into shops to get our name out there,” says Theresa. Above, dining table courtesy of Project 213A

Luca: It’s like that, right? When I graduated in design, everybody in Italy would say if I wanted to be a designer I needed to move to Milan. I would say, “I don’t want to move to Milan. I don’t like it. Why do I need to go there?” I decided to open my studio in Venice instead, and I was probably the only designer there.

I became kind of exotic for the Italian design community, because 90% is based in Milan. It allowed me to be a little bit more special just because I hate Milan.

Theresa: That’s exactly what I meant when I mentioned creating your own language. Just because people tell you must go to Milan, it’s a recipe. Who says you have to follow this recipe to be successful? If an opportunity arises and it feels right, just take it. As long as it sits within your gut, and it works.

Luca: I think AI will be a tool that will clean up a lot of mediocrities. Only the followers will use that. The ones who are self-confident, as you say, who see it as a tool and are empowered by it creatively don’t need to be fearful.

Theresa: It’s about having original ideas. Someone recently asked us where we get our inspiration. It’s a weird question to answer because I’m like, “Just look around you, it’s there.” We recently did a ceramic side table based on this soap that had the most beautiful shape. The more you use it the more it takes on a different shape.

You need to dare a little bit, not just do easy research sitting on your phone. Maybe even go to the library. I like to pick out books that are not part of the subject I work in. Inspiration can be everywhere. The most beautiful thing is when you’re on holiday because your mind is in a different place.

Luca: That’s true. The problem is the holiday is not a holiday anymore because you start to work again.

Theresa: I always dream of having a long holiday, and I know for fact after day one I’ll get bored. But it’s a different way of working because you allow yourself to fall into a pattern of learning. I enjoy it.

Luca: For me, when they ask where inspiration comes from, even I don’t know sometimes. I think we are collecting info and data as a hard disk in our brains. You collect things, you watch a movie, read a book, you see a person walking on the street. Then there is a trigger in an action, or in a food or in a smell or in a book. Somehow, all the pieces of the puzzle start to come together. I start digging until I find it.

On my side, most of the time it’s client content. They’ll say they’re looking for a new sofa or something; there is a very specific brief we try to accomplish. If I did exactly what the company asked me the project would be wrong. What they asked me for doesn’t exist. The only way to do it is to take about 20% out of the brief.

Theresa: And giving options. I notice these days if there is something I personally believe in, I need to give an option that’s worse so they can see what I had in mind is better.

Luca: It’s a Le Corbusier strategy to do that! Did you know that?

Theresa: I thought it was a Theresa Marx original!

Luca: When he was commissioned to design something, Le Corbusier always arrived with two options. One was the one he really liked—the model was perfect. The other one, the one the client asked for, was well done but nothing special. Every time they saw the one he liked, they thought it was the best. The real brief was the other option.

Theresa: Putting a little bit of extra effort into something always works.

Luca: For sure. If you only deliver what people expect, you get bored. Sometimes what people are reading about your practice is not what you want to be anymore. I believe it’s nice to jump out of that comfort. Maybe a company will tell you “no,” but at least you’re doing something you want.

Theresa: I struggle with that, especially in photography. There’s this concept of editorial work and commercial work. Usually you get booked for commercial work because you’ve done the editorial work, but the editorial work is the one you have to put your money and time into. You have to almost force people to give you the commissioning letter for a magazine, to get your idea across, to then get the commercial work.

Luca: When I was in New York I was talking with a designer about my business model. I explained it, and they noted I was mostly doing commercial design. I thought, “What do you mean ‘commercial design?’” They said it’s when someone commissions you for a product, you design it, and they sell it for you. 

I said I’m sorry, but every single form of design should be commercial—otherwise it’s not design. It was quite funny for me that they defined it that way. They were putting artistic and commercial design on two different levels.

Theresa: At the end of the day, if I do a commercial job, it’s to sell a product. There are more people involved who have an opinion—like the sales team telling me it needs to look a certain way so the customer will understand the product. My creativity is gone, but that’s fine. I can still click the button, no problem.

One day—still my big dream—I’ll have reached the point where I get paid for editorial work. They’ll give me a budget because they believe in what I’ve done. You need to prove yourself nonstop in order to get there. It just seems like it’s on a different scale, commercial and editorial.

Luca: The point is that it’s not even true. If I’m working with a glassblower in Murano, even a famous brand like Venini, how many of my vases can they do per year? 30? 40? No more than that. Is it commercial design, or editorial design? For me it’s almost editorial design. It depends on the nature of the company.

Theresa: And it’s down to the opinion of the person viewing it.

nichettostudio.com

theresamarx.com

project213a.com

Marta was born in Madrid and educated in Paris. Louis left France to study business in Paris, New York, and Shanghai. Both came to Indonesia to nourish their spirituality, where they met and became collaborators in art and life. Through Bisa Studio, the Chagnauds and their collaborators experiment with typical Indonesian materials like rattan, blown glass, and ceramics, but instead of mastering traditional techniques, they push themselves to experiment with media and form. This allows them to focus more on the story each object is trying to tell, whether it’s through curvy wood that takes on the personality of ocean waves, or crocheting brass to tell a poem.

Roots Chair, by Garance Vallée, illustrates this through its unusual silhouette. Made from Balinese wood, the seat has a high backrest with a curved hole cut through it. It’s as if one has an aerial view of a lake, the hollow water surrounded by wooded forest. The legs, resembling mountains, are mounted at opposing angles, disrupting the object’s balance when viewed head on, but the profile reveals that it is quite sturdy. It’s as much a map as it is a throne.

The Coral Blanc series, designed by Moises Tibau, raises awareness about coral bleaching. The white, v-shaped clay sculpture is inspired by the forms of sickly coral reefs in Cap de Creus canyon, where Moises learned about the issue from lobster fishers. Without healthy coral, biodiversity declines, which shrinks the food supply for island nations. While beautiful, Coral Blanc warns us about the fragility of marine life.

More stories are told through upholstery on the GFP Daybed and GFP Armchair. For the daybed, Franck Pellegrino collected fabric on his travels, and collaborated with Garance to fit them around cushions on a dark, teakwood frame that extends out into a side table. Both pieces incorporate large letters inspired by American colleges that emblazon their monograms across letterman jackets. Whether it’s the origin of the fabric or a nod to collegiate culture, every material shares an adventurous memory.

Bisa’s most intricate works lean into Indonesian craft. The Braided Shelves are entirely hand woven in rattan. Similarly, Marta’s series Poème géométrique, which reminds us of Ruth Asawa’s looped-wire sculptures, employs crochet to tell stories with light and shadow. Like most of Bisa Studio’s pieces, these bespoke objects only have one edition. Similar to personal narratives, they can only share the creator’s experience once.

Last March, the studio, based in Madrid, exhibited pieces by their four designers at Atelier Lardeur in Paris. Bisa continues their international ventures, combining cultures and creativity everywhere they go.

bisa-studio.com

Peek at any one of the dozens of journals inside Blake Crouch’s Durango, Colorado home, and he may seem a bit peculiar.

That’s where genius ideas for his thrilling works of science fiction are born, in drawings and scribbles on ruled paper, like “4th dimension = length + width + depth + duration (time)” and “Wormholes are dimensional?” It was scribbles like these, made in 2014, that paved the way for Recursion, the 2019 science fiction novel that was so exciting it was picked up by Netflix before the book even hit shelves. A story of memories saved, changed, and manipulated, it’s the toughest book Blake says he’s written yet. 

When we caught up with Blake in late August, he was relaxing between books, spending his days playing outside with his three kids, hiking with his dog BoJack, and trying to figure out what his next novel would look like. He’s had what he calls a serpentine writing career, from his first novel published in 2004 to moments of doubt in the late 2000s to recent successes like Wayward Pines (adapted for Fox with episodes airing from 2015–16), Dark Matter (currently in development with Sony), and now Recursion.

Blake lives and works in Durango, Colorado. Photo by Kennan Harvey

I just finished Recursion. It’s incredible. What inspired you to tell this story?

Recursion was a really weird process. It was not the first thing I did after Dark Matter. I started writing another book pretty soon after Dark Matter was published. I got about 150 or 60 pages into it, and I didn’t feel like I quite had my arms around the technology; it had to do with artificial intelligence in the video gaming world, and while there was a lot of stuff I loved about it, I didn’t think I had a full grasp of where it was going and where I wanted to take it. I set it aside and I was sort of looking at the blank page and going through my journals, which is something I do in between books—I take a lot of notes on possible story ideas, characters, and science. So I’m going through all my journals and I kept coming back to this obsession with memory, with how much memories define us, not just our identity but how we interact with others, how we see reality. I kept feeling this strong attraction to memory as a central concept. I started going through my process, which is spending a lot of time going through articles and seeing what the latest breakthroughs have been, and I found this article in the Smithsonian that was describing this experiment a couple of MIT neuroscientists completed in 2010. They were digging into the idea of implanting false memories in the brains of mice. They slid these little electrodes through their skulls and, by firing certain neurons in a mouse, they convinced it that it had been electrically shocked, even though it had never happened. I thought, “Wow that’s really cool. What if we were to scale that up and do this with humans? What are the ramifications of that?” This set me off down this path of writing this book.

How long was that process? How long were you working on Recursion?

I started Recursion in February 2017. I threw more pages out on this book than anything else I’ve ever written. It’s just a really complicated story line. I went down a lot of blind alleys before I figured out what the end was. I think I had a first draft done in December 2017 and then another eight months of massive rewriting before I really finished the book in late July 2018. A good year-and-a-half from initial idea to turning it into Recursion. But of course there’s stuff in my life that led me to writing this book that goes decades back, so in some ways I’ve been working on this book my whole life.

Blake can write anywhere—in his home office, his town office, on his deck, at the kitchen island, or, frequently, on planes. When he’s in his downtown Durango office, he uses a whiteboard to map out story structure. Other times, he jots ideas in notebooks. “You never know when you write something down and don’t really know what it means, but something in your psyche is connected to it and five years later you may go back and read through these journals, which I do frequently, and you suddenly see an idea in a new light. Dark Matter had two or three journals, Recursion had a couple, and I have probably 20 journals all told.” Photo by Kennan Harvey

How so? Can you give me an example?

Well, like the whole idea of Helena, the neuroscientist co-protagonist of the book. She’s essentially building this memory chair to capture and save core memories because she’s trying to save her mother’s core memories. Her mom has Alzheimer’s. When I was 8 years old my grandfather came to live with us for about six weeks. He was not able to care for himself, and my mom and dad had gotten a care facility for him, but it wasn’t available for six weeks so he lived with us during that time. It was tragic and scary and fascinating and all these things, living with someone whose memories were completely abandoning them. I remember waking up in the middle of one night and he was shuffling around in my closet at 3am. He thought he was getting on a train. All of that made a big impression on me.

Related | Emily St. John Mandel on Working Through Chaos

There are a lot of flashbulb memories that made their way into Recursion. A flashbulb memory is a memory that surrounds an event that is so formative in our identity that we always remember it with incredible clarity, as opposed to most memories, which we remember but the clarity of them is in question. Like 9/11—everyone who was there has a flashbulb memory around that for the most part, or the Challenger. There is this character [in Recursion] who talks about being in the dentist’s office when the Challenger exploded in 1986; I lifted that straight from my own experience of seeing the Challenger explode in 1986 sitting in the waiting room of the dentist’s office. That exact memory is my flashbulb memory.

Let’s back up to how you got here. How did you get your first book deal?

Whew. It was awhile ago. I got my first book deal in 2001, for Desert Places; it was with St. Martin’s Press. I got an agent with a query letter and then she read the manuscripts and took it on. It took eight months to sell the book. My writing career has been really pretty serpentine. From 2004 to 2010 I was traditionally published with St. Martin’s Press. My sales were never great at St. Martin’s, they were kind of diminishing, and basically I thought my career was dead or dying. And then the Kindle came along and the ability to publish on not just Kindle but on the Nook and Kobo and Smashwords. I got the rights back to some of my early novels and released those on the e-book platforms and published one new book, Run, in 2011. I saw a rate of sales I’d never seen before with St. Martin’s Press. At this point in time Amazon Publishing came into being, which is different from the self-publishing Kindle direct platform; this is a national publisher. I had come up with my Wayward Pines idea, and so Amazon Publishing published Wayward Pines and then I sold the show and that kind of exploded. After I finished Wayward Pines I was ready to go back to traditional publishing … I wanted to have the full suite of options available so I moved with Dark Matter to Penguin Random House, who just published Recursion. Really, it’s hard for me to say, “Just get an agent and do these things.” My career has been sort of reacting to the changing market of publishing.

Blake’s bookshelf is filled with familiar book jackets and memorabilia from his writing turned TV in his downtown office. Photo by Kennan Harvey

How did you first begin working with TV and film?

We mailed Pines out to a few producers and there was a lot of interest, and one of them was a guy named Donald De Line. He put me in touch with this writer/showrunner named Chad Hodge, and we got on the phone and had this great conversation. He really loved the book and had a real confidence and vision for how it could become a TV show—and not just how it could become a TV show but how to sell it. He thought, wisely and correctly, that it was way too complicated just to try to pitch this to someone. He wanted to write the pilot, so I let him take a pilot script out as the selling tool; he wrote such a great script they were able to get M. Night Shyamalan to sign on to executive produce and direct the first episode; it was just one of those amazing things where everyone kept saying yes—from the studios to the actors we wanted to get on board. It was a pretty amazing process.

Did you ever imagine this becoming your life?

I guess I hoped I would find success in film and television. I never thought it would be to this extent. You don’t realize until something’s been made how hard it is—it’s not easy to option something, but it’s really not that hard to sell something as an option and to get it into development at a studio. What’s really, really, really hard is the next step, which is to have a studio produce a pilot. I didn’t realize at the time how difficult that was and how fortunate I was to have Wayward Pines and Good Behavior (TNT) both not only be produced but get on the air and be pretty well received. I’ve had plenty of friends who’ve had things made and made badly. That does not help anyone’s career to have something be poorly made. I feel incredibly fortunate.

Has having your work adapted for film or TV changed the way you write?

I’m sure it has, but it’s not been intentional. Obviously I’m aware I can write a novel and it can be its own thing and that it can potentially have a life outside of being a book, that it could go on to be a script or a movie or a TV show, but I didn’t try to ever write anything just thinking, “Oh, this will be a movie or a great TV show.” If I thought that I would just write the movie or TV show. There’s always room for it to become a film and someone write a script based on it.

Blake’s novella Summer Frost was just released as part of the Amazon Original Stories Forward collection. He curated the short story collection with his partner and, for Summer Frost, used parts of the novel he abandoned between Dark Matter and Recursion. “It’s a pretty cool lineup of writers [N. K. Jemisin, Veronica Roth, Amor Towles, Paul Tremblay, and Andy Weir] all involved in that collection.” Photo by Kennan Harvey

Did you always want to be a writer? What were you like as a kid?

From probably 6 or 7 years old I wanted to be a writer. It was always a question of, well, being a writer is not something I would encourage one of my kids to pursue seriously. If you want to be a writer great, but you should probably have other skill sets to fall back on because it’s a really hard business and tough to maintain any real level of control unless you get to a certain place of success. But yeah, it’s what I always wanted to do. I started my very first novel, unpublished, in high school my senior year. I wrote short stories throughout high school and middle school. I told my brother scary bedtime stories. I was 10 and he was 4. I wrote a Star Wars sequel to Return of the Jedi in the early ’90s when I was grounded and couldn’t do anything else, but my parents would let me write on our Tandy 1000 if I wanted. It’s always been the thing I wanted to do and the only thing I could do well.

Are you pretty deliberate about how often you write or do you just write when things come to you?

No. When I know what my book is and I have a plan or when I’m writing a script and know what I’m doing, I try to write every day. I might take Sunday off, but I’ll try to write every day because you build up momentum with each subsequent day and if you derail yourself it can be tough to get back on track. I don’t know what my next book is yet. I have a pretty good notion, but I don’t know what it is so my time right now is spent trying to envision what that story can be. Actually writing is not helpful at this stage. The helpful thing is trying to figure out what the structure of the book might be, the way in, what the characters might be.

“It’s always scary to face the blank page again and come up with the next idea.”

So you’re not locked in a room writing eight hours a day every day right now.

I know many writers and we all have our different processes. I know a lot of people who have so many book ideas and they need time to go do each of them. They finish this book and they roll right in and do the next one. I’m really not like that. I tend to be very hard on my ideas, especially lately. Dark Matter is a book that’s based around the multiverse. From one vantage point, Recursion is a novel that’s based on time travel. These are very well-known tropes. It’s not like no one’s written a multiverse book before … but I love going into these big ideas and trying to stake out my own new ground in them. It’s very hard for me to pull the trigger on starting my next book because at the end of the day I’m always like, do we really need another multiverse story? Do we really need another time travel story? Do we really need another small quirky town story? There has to be a really compelling way in for me to take that leap, which is why I’m not writing every single day. I’m trying to pressure check how strong the initial idea is.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I have three kids, so they take up a good amount of free time. I live in this beautiful part of the country, so I get outside a lot, mountain bike and hike a lot. I take my dog into the mountains whenever I can. My partner and I travel a lot. Travel is an amazing way I’ve found to lose these creative ruts you get into. I’m inspired by places I see, and they work themselves into my books, so that takes a big priority for me.

That’s so interesting. I picked up Dark Matter not realizing it was set in Chicago and I was so excited to read scenes set down the street from where I live. How did you decide to set that novel there?

I have a lot of really good friends who are Chicagoans. I have one writer friend, Marcus Sakey, and I was on a brainstorm trip to Chicago visiting him when I came up with the idea for Dark Matter in (restaurant) Longman & Eagle … That felt like my Chicago book. I honestly never really considered setting it anywhere else.

How do you feel these days sharing new work? Do you still get nervous putting your writing out there?

Every time. You never know if stuff that connects to you will connect to others. It’s always scary to face the blank page again and come up with the next idea; it seems to always feel harder than the last time. I don’t know many writers who aren’t pretty kooky about that stuff.

How do you define success?

I don’t know. I think of it as you have these milestones you hit and you enjoy it for a moment. Like the first time a publisher sends you the book they’re about to publish in a month and you hold that, that’s a success. It’s hard to ever match the first time I had an agent represent me. I had no idea how many more mountains there were to climb before I was able to be creative for a living, but that was a bar of success. The first time a publisher bought my book. The first time I hit The New York Times bestseller list. The first time I broke the top 100 on Amazon, the first time I hit #1 on Amazon, selling Wayward Pines, sitting on set and watching actors say words from a script I’d written. There are all benchmarks, but none of that matters when you’re looking at the blank page and trying to figure out what you’re going to do next. I think there should be a level of fear each time.

I understand Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy), Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, The Batman), and Netflix are adapting Recursion. What’s that been like?

Honestly I’m an executive producer on that project, but Recursion was such a beast of a book to write I did not attach myself as a writer, so I’m not really in the weeds of that process yet. It’s still pretty early days, so hopefully a year from now I will have more to say, but right now I haven’t really been that involved, by my own wishes. It’s weird. Some things I want to be very intimately involved in in terms of adapting them for film or TV. It’s a weird decision when it comes time to make it because before we take something out to sell it in Hollywood I have to decide whether I want to write it and how involved I want to be. I knew with Recursion that it was such a hard book to structurally figure out; I was like I’m ready for people smarter than I am to figure out a way to bring this to the screen.

Will that be fun to watch for you or will it be stressful?

[Laughs] I hope it’s fun to watch. There are really smart people and really successful producers and writers and directors involved in the adaptation. I have high hopes.

Do you have any advice for anyone trying to navigate this world or similar creative endeavors?

For me, the real breakthrough in starting to write a story that resonates with people happened when I put more of myself into the story. Not like in an autobiographical sense but more like channeling whatever psychological stuff, emotional stuff I was going through at the time, not trying to shove that away and write something completely divorced from it, but actually channeling it. It started helping me write characters and make art that connected to far more people.

Piero, renowned for his minimalist ethos that quietly rebels against the clutter of modern life, presents through his work a manifesto of less but better. Tellingly, the very first image in the book is not a work of his, but instead a small black and white image of a Donald Judd sculpture, a minimalist stack of boxes that distances the artist from their work. This notion, where great artists “cede part of their representation of themselves in their work” in order to let the pieces themselves come alive, sets the foundation for the portfolio that follows.

Environments is meticulously laid out and richly illustrated. From the onset, it’s evident that Piero’s work is a dialogue with the environment, where each project, whether a sprawling corporate headquarters or an intimate residential space, speaks to its context with a language of understated elegance.

One of the most compelling aspects of Environments is its exploration of Piero’s ability to navigate and blend the boundaries between architecture and design. The projects featured, from the serene shores of the Oberoi Beach Resort to the structural sophistication of the Grand Park Hotel, underscore his talent for creating spaces that are visually stunning and deeply connected to their environment. His designs, characterized by clean lines and an uncluttered aesthetic, manage to evoke a sense of calm and balance, and timeless appeal.

The Ex-Libris glass cabinet designed by Piero Lissoni for Porro. The self-standing structure consists of black painted, cuvée, or rosso antico uprights and melamine base unit and top in black sugi or white cherry. Photo illustration by Guido Scarabottolo

The book illustrates how Piero treats light, texture, and material as co-conspirators when crafting living spaces. His work on furniture and product design, including collaborations with brands like Boffi, Knoll, and Porro, showcases his belief that design should enhance, not dictate, the way we live and interact with our surroundings. Reflecting on this ethos Piero says, “So when I design a kitchen, I imagine new ways of interpreting the space for conviviality. Or when I design sanitary appliances, I try to render in three dimensions a different setting for body care. If my work sometimes seems minimalistic, it’s because I keep thinking contemporaneously of objects and spaces like a modernist architect does: without ‘stuff’ interfering with the surroundings, and without the surroundings interfering with the ‘stuff.’”

Environments also delves into Piero’s graphic design ventures, revealing another layer of his design abilities, subtle and impactful. Regardless of the context, his work urges a design ethos that values restraint, harmony, and a skillful interplay between form and function. The book positions Piero not just as a designer but as a visionary, one whose legacy is defined by his ability to create environments that resonate with the essence of human experience.  Piero says, “The workings of a design office are an evolution of what you stand for, what your imagination does and what your dreams desire.”

Environments (Rizzoli, 488 pages, hardcover, $100)