May 2, 2005 -- VIA met up with Yahel Chirinian at the Monsoon Heritage studio she runs with her German partner, environmentalist Doris Zacheres. Facing the rice fields, in Goa we discuss her vision for her new creations she will present in June.
“ The work of nature never ceases to amaze me ”
Even those who are usually bored by new-contemporary-neo-design-and- designer find Yahel’s works stunning, deep and visionary. She's talentful, beautiful, intense and eccentric, she's highly intelligent, irresistible and fiercely private. From her creative studio in Goa she redesigns the future.
What does it matter if the work is beautiful in configuration, generous in space, free from clutter, sophisticated in details, pure in materials unless it reveals the soul?
To feel serene, stable, at peace at a place, to remove disorder and vulgarity from sight, Yahel Chirinian needs nature. “The work of nature never ceases to amaze me” she says, ““the tree, man's best friend, is a fabulous material. It terrifies by its massivement but its longevity reassures.”
She works in search of the very essence of the material that she values so highly. Thus this sentiment takes a special form and becomes an object close to the senses, which allows wood to remain wood, brings light closer to light, leaves the horizon open and gives space its dimension. Harmony between figures - no opposites, no clutter, no tension, no fragments. The finished object involves the whole body and the senses.
”I love touch and texture. In a dehumanized world, I strive for the real and the human,” Yahel says.
The ability to be in touch with reality enables her to react against a univers which has become too virtual for her. She’s not tempted by technological feats, by the digital and micro processing era, any more than she is by mass production. Each object must provoke not only an emotion, but also a feeling of fulfillment and true sensuality, which makes you immediately feel you want to touch it. No doubt she has suffered from not being caressed enough. Today, she creates objects that cry out to be caressed.
Creating with your hands objects which reflect your unconscious self-image, exorcises an existential fear. This osmosis with natural elements provides an exceptional, inexhaustible and regenerating source of inspiration. Indeed, tree and man resemble each other.
”The power of these emotional objects goes back to their own history, and is engraved in their very fibers, far beyond the function I give them” she says and adds “the materialistic culture of perverted forms fears simplicity”.
However talented, passionate, committed and heroic one is, it does not matter what one says or makes; creating means suffering the distress of irredeemable failure but she wants her work to make people dream. There is no further need to compel, the direction becomes clear. It must be a source of pleasure and sensuality, a place to which anybody can come and for a while be free from thinking about what he is going to do.
“I’m a perfectionniste” she says “you don't just get to design in which environment will live people, but you design the whole world. Human beings really do want to connect.”.
Yahel Chirinian creates a new concept of open living space, urban sanctuary and ambiente experience…..a new relationship between a new design and a new lifestyle. Contemporary and mutant.
Monsoon Heritage
GOA - India
Phone: +91 98 22122771
www.monsoonheritage.com
