HOLD A SPACE FOR ME
branding/identity, brand strategy, experiential curation & art direction, graphic designI 2022 / 2024
Show II
Back to School, January 2025
An aspiration for an unconventional gallery emerges in the form of this project, as it transforms homes into venues for showcasing experimental endeavors.
While traditional galleries often remain empty spaces, "Hold a Space for Me" teems with the tangible textures of daily life, extending a warm invitation to viewers to immerse themselves in the intricate realm of coexistence with objects.
Hold a Space for Me is the belief in you and me, in our intimacy, our unfamiliarity, our awkwardness and in our passion. Our objects are nothing if not born from the community and contexts that fuel our creative spirit. We invite you into our homes sacred places in which we dream, create and commune.
While traditional galleries often remain empty spaces, "Hold a Space for Me" teems with the tangible textures of daily life, extending a warm invitation to viewers to immerse themselves in the intricate realm of coexistence with objects.
Hold a Space for Me is the belief in you and me, in our intimacy, our unfamiliarity, our awkwardness and in our passion. Our objects are nothing if not born from the community and contexts that fuel our creative spirit. We invite you into our homes sacred places in which we dream, create and commune.
Collaborator
Vedika Modi
Role
Designer
Story telling
Art direction
Curatorial design
Project management
Vedika Modi
Role
Designer
Story telling
Art direction
Curatorial design
Project management
BACK TO SCHOOL I JANUARY 2025
- - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----- - - - - - - - ------ - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------- - - -- - - - ------- --------- - - - -- - -- - - -- -- - - - -- - -- - - - - - - -Holding Space Reimagined
Krithi Nala
Sunna Bak
Thomas Yang
Thomas Granjer
Tarshaa Krishnaraj
Sara Kashanisabet
Krithi Nala
Sunna Bak
Thomas Yang
Thomas Granjer
Tarshaa Krishnaraj
Sara Kashanisabet
As the two of us return to a project we started as students, we find ourselves thinking about our education, creativity and what holding space means outside of the institutions we have inhabited. To bring bag the communal and collaborative essence of this gallery, this addition of Hold A Space For Me exists as an artists residency.
Back to School is about reimagining the tools, methods and experiences of learning. It invites participants to consider how we might learn outside of the institutions we’ve grown up with. How does the relationship to mark making change when you lengthen a pencil? What happens if you read from the end of the book and make your way back to the beginning?
Learning is deeply material. What happens if we disrupt convention, interrupt the inevitable, and create brand new tools for ourselves.
Back to School is about reimagining the tools, methods and experiences of learning. It invites participants to consider how we might learn outside of the institutions we’ve grown up with. How does the relationship to mark making change when you lengthen a pencil? What happens if you read from the end of the book and make your way back to the beginning?
Learning is deeply material. What happens if we disrupt convention, interrupt the inevitable, and create brand new tools for ourselves.
Designer Invites I The residency brief was hand delivered in a box of chalks to inspire a world of thoughts
Branded Objects I Tools for mark making , drawing , writing , erasing , exploring
Invitations for friends & family I Friendship bracelets a symbol of our childhoods, a pact to come together
“ ESTAR DE SOBRE MESA ” I NOVEMBER 2022
- - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----- - - - - - - - ------ - - - - - - - - - - - - ----------- - - -- - - - ------- --------- - - - -- - -- - - -- -- - - - -- - -- - - - - - - -Inspired by the Spanish tradition of Sobre Mesa, the first show embodied the limbo between a shared meal and the day’s rest. Rooted in the act of coming and going and the casualness of the moment, people were invited to converse, connect, and rejoice throughout the entire afternoon.
“El recuerdo es el reunir a la familia, que para mí ha sido algo muy importante no un recuerdo en especial sino en realidad todos.”
“The memory is of reuniting the family, which for me has been something extremely important. I don’t have a specific memory that is special, in reality they all are.”
The essence of a shared meal
by Maria de la Concepción Ibañez Martin
(Loving Grandmother)
“El recuerdo es el reunir a la familia, que para mí ha sido algo muy importante no un recuerdo en especial sino en realidad todos.”
“The memory is of reuniting the family, which for me has been something extremely important. I don’t have a specific memory that is special, in reality they all are.”
The essence of a shared meal
by Maria de la Concepción Ibañez Martin
(Loving Grandmother)
Exhibited Work
The Designers
Out Reach
Slowly, through friends and friends of friends we began spreading the news of the opening to our show.
Connections and friendships built to last through a common love for people, objects and being at home.
Connections and friendships built to last through a common love for people, objects and being at home.
A Viewer’s Journey
Questions we ask ourselves
Can a gallery be warm?
In what contexts and environments does the work feel most seen?
What makes a good conversation great?
Can a gallery be complicated, textured and lived in?
Designing Interactions
The transformation of the environment in which art and design are experienced creates opportunities for fresh, unfamiliar, and innovative interactions with the artworks.
Can a gallery be warm?
In what contexts and environments does the work feel most seen?
What makes a good conversation great?
Can a gallery be complicated, textured and lived in?
Designing Interactions
The transformation of the environment in which art and design are experienced creates opportunities for fresh, unfamiliar, and innovative interactions with the artworks.
Special thanks to
Collaborator
Vedika Modi
Photographer
Shaina Suir
With gratitude to the wonderful designers that trusted us with their projects
Ritika Kedia , Edible To-Do Lists
Thomas Yang , Ceramic Molds
Shashwath Santosh, Quantum Brownies
Krithi Nalla , Quantum Brownies
Yu Quihong, Film Photographs
June Lim , A Picnic Basket for Two, [A gift for you] ...for me
Carmen Oldham, Investigations of body, memory and transformation through beeswax
Makiah Roberts, A Picnic Basket for Two
Collaborator
Vedika Modi
Photographer
Shaina Suir
With gratitude to the wonderful designers that trusted us with their projects
Ritika Kedia , Edible To-Do Lists
Thomas Yang , Ceramic Molds
Shashwath Santosh, Quantum Brownies
Krithi Nalla , Quantum Brownies
Yu Quihong, Film Photographs
June Lim , A Picnic Basket for Two, [A gift for you] ...for me
Carmen Oldham, Investigations of body, memory and transformation through beeswax
Makiah Roberts, A Picnic Basket for Two
References
Bachelard, Gaston, and Richard Kearney. The poetics of space. New York, N.Y: Penguin Books, 2014.
Bowles, Meg, Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, Sarah Austin Jenness, Kate Tellers, Padma Lakshmi, and Chenjerai Kumanyika. How to tell A story: The essential guide to memorable storytelling from the moth. New York: Crown, 2023.
O’Doherty, Brian, and Thomas McEvilley. Inside the White Cube: The ideology of the gallery space. Berkeley (Calif.): University of California Press, 2000.
Bachelard, Gaston, and Richard Kearney. The poetics of space. New York, N.Y: Penguin Books, 2014.
Bowles, Meg, Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, Sarah Austin Jenness, Kate Tellers, Padma Lakshmi, and Chenjerai Kumanyika. How to tell A story: The essential guide to memorable storytelling from the moth. New York: Crown, 2023.
O’Doherty, Brian, and Thomas McEvilley. Inside the White Cube: The ideology of the gallery space. Berkeley (Calif.): University of California Press, 2000.