Discovering, crossing, creating

The famous Nilufar gallery was established in 1979 due to Nina Yashar‘s initiative. Ever since its first steps the institution has distinguished itself for its search of precious ancient carpets. Starting from the knowledge of Persian, Chinese, Indian and Tibetan carpets, an eclectic approach brought Nilufar to widen its horizon of lands and time. It’s a pleasure to hear from Nina about her whole design market and how it’s changing, also we were eager to know more about her project SQUAT.

Click here to subscribe to our print edition!

Today

As the gallery founder, I work with my sister Nilu and a team of five other people. Nilufar took part in several editions of Pavillon des Arts et du Design in Paris and we are always present at Design Miami/Basel. We have our own small manifesto, composed of only three words: discovering, crossing, creating.

The design world is in constant motion and transformation, and, thanks to the many fairs around the world, it is attracting more people every year. What’s exciting in working in the design field is that, being very dynamic and lively, it is still impossible to predict what will happen a few months from the present moment.

The changes

Design has become a subject of interest, especially for modern and contemporary art collectors that in the past didn’t place attention on the “furniture world”. The approach has finally changed, design is regarded with the same attention that art is and people are very passionate about it.

Talking about potential market growth in the world, I would certainly say that the Middle East is a growing and very interesting market. All one need to do is work with young or promising talents and not subject one’s work to bias or predefined schemes – this is the perfect way to enter any new market in our sector.

So what is SQUAT?

I have teamed up with a wonderful London-based interior architect Shalini Misra to launch the fifth edition of the furniture-in-site concept SQUAT, taking up residence in a £10 million apartment in South Audley Street, Mayfair. SQUAT is basically an innovative concept that combines design, art and architecture giving life to new original high standard domestic landscapes. Like my colleague Shalini says:

“Finding the right property for SQUAT was a long but exciting process, as we only select unique properties with inherent character, which we develop in a tailor-made manner. The interior architectural design has been finished to a high standard with each bespoke element of design making it an ideal setting for SQUAT”.