The Material Speaks — A Conversation with IAAI KUTATELADZE
IAAI
Ia Kutateladze Tbilisi · Florence · Berlin · Studio 2019 · Furniture · Lighting · ObjectsGeorgian multidisciplinary designer working between intuition and material. She listens to what the material wants to say. She does not plan the end result. She lives for the surprise of seeing where the process goes.
Tell us about yourself.
IAAI is Ia Kutateladze, from Tbilisi, Georgia. She studied product and interior design in Florence, graduating in 2010. Since 2012, she has been creating furniture, lighting and other functional objects. In 2016 she moved to Berlin, and in 2019 created her studio — a space for working with different materials, creating both functional and non-functional, explorative design objects.
Greatest inspirations or influences?
"The greatest inspiration for me is the material explorations and the creative process itself. I am very much interested in trying to understand myself and other humans psychologically at a deeper level, finding the hidden links between my personality and the creative process and then the finished piece."
"I cannot say that I have influences from a specific design or art movement. Inspiration could come from anything — the tiniest details of everyday life, to specific textural, structural combinations that I find in nature or around cities. It is a mixture of all the small observations and experiences I live through and some invisible links that are reinterpreted in my mind, which then flows out naturally."
"My creative process is very intimate, intuitive and spontaneous. I really like to experiment and play around, not having a specific plan. Exploring different materials, my personal psychological-emotional states in specific moments of creation, and how those emotions could be reinterpreted into physical objects."
"It is almost like a meditation, using physical surfaces and intuition to transform and revision the materials. I listen to them, let them communicate with me, let them express their natural properties in a playful way and from this communication, I start interacting with it."
"I live for that excitement of seeing the process and knowing that you are going to surprise yourself, because there is no pre-planned process."
"Starting from one element and then intuitively taking from there, having no idea what the end result will be. I live for that excitement."
How did the pandemic affect your creativity?
"I was very productive during the pandemic — it was my salvation, my way of fighting back at the situation we were in. Every single day, sometimes till late at night, I went to the studio. I had this never-ending urge to create, more focus and energy somehow, no distractions, no excuses. Just me and the flow."
"I really do believe that it has done quite a lot of good to a lot of people. The inner explorations and calm, peace of mind and re-evaluation of values, our role in a global, communal picture — I hope this will change the way we continue to live. Maybe more mindfully, more intentionally."
Who do you consider icons in your opinion?
"To be honest, I don't really agree with the concept of an icon in general. But there are a lot of people whose work is genuine and honest, whose creations make me smile, give me strength and inspiration. I really respect anyone who is honest with their chosen field of expression, stays true to themselves and never stops creating."
"Well-being is honesty and acceptance to myself, self-compassion. Being honest with self-expression and other aspects of life. Acceptance of oneself, with all of the flaws, is really important for peace of mind."
"Being a good friend to oneself and not trying to constantly perform for the outer world. Never stopping the act of creation, exploration and experimentation is also very important for my well-being — there is no me without it."
"Starting from within, going outwards, and not the other way around — that is the way for me to stay grounded and peaceful."
"There is no me without it."
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Read on Antakly Projects ↗ Art & Design · Buenos Aires · BarcelonaIndustrial designer turned craftsman. His process begins by choosing a material and starting the search. Simplicity, harmony, purity.
Read on Antakly Projects ↗ Photography · Conceptual · PragueConceptual photographer whose practice, like IAAI's, is built on the question of what lies beyond the known — and the journey toward it.
Read on Antakly Projects ↗Antakly Projects — originally Ninu Nina — has been in conversation with designers, artists, photographers and creatives from across the world since 2003. IAAI's practice — intimate, material, without a predetermined destination — is exactly the kind of work this platform was built to share.
Explore her work at iaaidesign.com and follow at @iaai___
And for the personal rants, opinions you didn't ask for, and the occasional existential spiral: follow me on Substack.
Starting from within, going outwards. ✦
