What if decorating your interiors was the equivalent of taking to the stage, having a subjective view through which your senses would take over reason… and getting carried away by illustrating the simplest things with a thousand details.
Interiors are defined as being self-contained, the “in-between the walls”; but also, and most importantly, the intimacy of it all.
The designer-user, collecting objects, putting them together, bringing them closer, would become the narrator, the creator of an installation.
The objects, a landscape that appeals to the senses and provides access to certain life experiences; here, the ability to use your senses represents the link with material goods; the relationship with objects is part of the process of subjectivity.
The choices are firstly made with the heart, then with reason.
The aesthetics then become a personal story, dictated by the collection of accumulated objects, chosen, inherited… intimate objects, long-lasting and irreplaceable, teenage years objects designed to only last a certain amount of time; precious objects as well as little nothings, those of yesterday and those of today, artifacts from here and there… Culture as a point of contact and final destination, culture that constructs itself, individual; culture that starts with history and develops itself with its life experiences. Objects with biographies and their own identities.
The lambi conch and the dame-jeanne bottle stand proudly next to photographs of elders, African masks and contemporary art pieces. The decor reflects an array of different stories of survival experienced through time.
Interior design defined by popular Art and theoretical techniques, it is essentially the signature “savoir-être” and “savoir-faire” of the place. Mixing cultures, creolising, the art of the detour, of accumulation, of orality. At the crossroad, it is multiple yet unique.
It lives in its time but fully embraces the re-appropriation of objects belonging to our materialistic culture, revealing a history behind it, true social markers often considered as outdated, poor or tacky. It makes its mark in modernity whist praising tradition. It is contemporary and can originate from one place or another. It knows what it means to be authentic but also takes pride in its own eccentricity.
By Florence Edmond
Découvrez l'ensemble du relooking sur le magazine papier Mode Mood Mode de juin 2016