Stories

Nipa Doshi x Marlo Lyda

The Age We're In
Words by Nipa Doshi and Marlo Lyda
Two women sit on chairs on a stage talking to each other.

In India, we have the saying that, to know something is knowledge, but to know ‘how to’ is supreme knowledge.
Nipa Doshi

Nipa Doshi, co-founder of British studio Doshi Levien, discusses design research, cross-cultural perspectives, and materiality with Australian designer-maker Marlo Lyda. Doshi recounts her formative years growing up in India and reflects on her studies at London's Royal College of Art in the late 1990s. Lyda, having recently returned to Australia after completing a BA at the Design Academy Eindhoven (Netherlands) considers how her education abroad has impacted her emerging practice, in which she challenges widely accepted manufacturing processes and production techniques.

When I went to the UK, I went to the Royal College of Art in London. I suddenly realised that I actually don't really know about European design because it was something that I learned second hand rather than something that related to my culture, to my immediate environment.
Nipa Doshi
Black and white photograph of a metal curved structure with cross bars on top of a work table.
Grid paper with colour drawings of furniture ideas.
Multiple drawings of a fragmented circular shape with different colours and line designs.
a wooden chair whit silver lines and green edges sitting in a room in front of a white wall with images and notes stuck up on it.
I'm always combating the idea whether what you create should look identical to how you see it in your mind, or if you should allow it to deviate through time. And I think both statements are true.
Marlo Lyda
A gray 3d rendered piece of coral on a white background.
A gold necklace imitating the shapes of coral on a black background
For me, beauty is very important. And when I talk about beauty, I mean the way of doing things or the way of making things.
Nipa Doshi
a section of a metal sphere on a work bench with a metal beater tool laying on top.
A photograph of sand with patterns created by wind and tides.
Marlo lyda crouched down on a beach working on a frame that is placed flat on the sand.
I love these tools and these machines that are that just required the power of the human body. With that simple knowledge, you could create arguably almost everything that you need in the world. You could create with your two hands.
Marlo Lyda
Rectangular shaped wooden carry box with two metal hinges and a metal lock fitting and metal and plastic handle. Inside the box two discs are threaded onto metal upright rods that are attached to a wooden length on the base of the box. The discs rotate in a horizontal plane.
1/2
Object No. 2002/47/1
What already exists on the world is incredibly precious. Remnants is just all the little pieces of stone that are too broken or too small to be used in any other way, I guess. And they're supported on little spindly legs that are embodiment of that ethos that things should be elevated and revalued and that it's just about seeing the potential and articulating it.
Marlo Lyda
a series of tables with marble tops in various shapes and colours and black bar legs.
A skip outside a house with strips of scrap material leaning against it.
A close up image of the top of a green marbled table with black legs.
A close up image of the table legs and the coiled metallic joining.
The beauty of making as a process is that you can arrive at finishes and techniques and obscure ways of doing something that actually end up fitting so well. The embodied emotion or embodied meaning.
Marlo Lyda
I write, I read, and somehow the idea emerges. I think drawing is the root cause of my happiness.
Nipa Doshi
Grid paper with colour swatches and hand written notes.
Nipa Doshi facing the camera whilst holding a pen against a drawing up against a brick wall.
Grid paper with illustrated colour grids and diamonds with Hindi characters.

Speakers

Nipa Doshi is the co-founder of Doshi Levien alongside Jonathan Levien. Doshi grew up in India and studied at the National Institute of Design. Her resulting practice is rooted in her plural upbringing and astute eye for visual culture. The layering of research, materiality, and the tactility of the Doshi Levien design process – painting, sculpting, colour making – results in work that is distinguished by a clarity of ideas and seemingly effortless attention to detail.

Marlo Lyda is an Australian born designer-maker, and recent graduate from the Design Academy Eindhoven (Netherlands). Coaxing her delicate and functional objects from materials that are undervalued, Marlo embraces fieldwork and intuitive process as means of challenging widely accepted techniques and industry by-products.

About

The Age We’re In brings together practitioners, scientists and researchers at different stages of their careers to share ideas and responses to global issues. These conversations highlight the common ground of how and why they pursue their practise and explore challenges and opportunities in their industries.