Straightforward, instinctive, eclectic and a dreamer. In her vision, forms from the West blend with flavors and colors from the East and from the southern parts of the world that she knows and loves deeply. Captivated by these cultures, they are at the root of her untiring passion for the history of handicrafts, for artisan techniques, for the material culture of places both near and faraway. Free-spirited, curious, cosmopolitan, traveler of the world. An atypical nomad who likes to put down roots anywhere and everywhere she sets up home, no matter if it is for a lifetime or just a short holiday. Traveling and living abroad has nourished her special ability to look at, or better yet, to see everything around her. The details and the anomalies. The archetypes and the differences. A gift, cultivated every day that represents her way of breathing. In her intuitive world, stylistic consistencies are not nurtured. On the contrary, she loves to work with diverse things, looking in many different directions in order to discover new relationships and to assemble all these things that exist in the world in an ironic way. It is not always necessary to venture far: memories and familiar passages often hide enticing wonders. When asked to talk about her work, she loves to describe how every single project is the fruit of an encounter with special people, how this alchemy, which is different each time, is her true impetus toward creativity. An enchantment that is able to lead down long, unexpected and creative paths. More than a designer, Paola Navone is an anthropologist of things, studying the history, shape and substance of artifacts that come from diverse cultures and times, in order to uncover their secrets and experiment with new associations of taste. Because ideas are capable of circulating by means of objects and they are able to go anywhere. Of course, we are dealing with the here-and-now but it is a contemporaneity that loves to contaminate its own useless purity with the energy and beauty of the world. All of Paola Navone’s projects talk – in the anti-theoretical and anarchic sentimental way that distinguishes her – about that rich, vital and open relationship with the world. PAOLA NAVONE, edited by Caroline Klein 176 pages hardcover Sprache/language english/german/french/spanish/italian, 25,00 €