Series: Exploring interior design through its power to facilitate healing, joy & wellbeing

In this 3 part series I'll be exploring the question: Through learning the art of interior design, how can we start putting thought and effort into the spaces we live in so that they can fulfill a purpose, accurately reflect, positively affect our wellbeing and quality of life and transform the way we experience life?

Part 1: Home

The spaces we live and experience life in are physical reflections of our inside worlds, and yet, the way we design our external spaces also directly impact that world created inside our minds. The way my room looks, whether colourful, cluttered, clean, or simple; will both consciously and subconsciously affect my state of mind. Just as my state of mind will subconsciously and consciously affect the state of my room. It’s an exchange of energy and inspiration through sensory experience.

The concept of ‘Home’ is an abstract one. There are endless poetic, profound or almost cynically realistic interpretations of the word. Home can be wherever you feel it, it can exist in multiple places, people or feelings. Both everywhere and nowhere. In this piece I’ll be exploring the physical manifestation of a home, and the importance of creating a home as opposed to purely existing in a space, to meet the need of maintaining a roof over your head.

For thousands of years our ancestors have created spaces that generate positive emotion. Hunter gatherers built temporary shelters that reflected and encouraged their nomadic, nature-led lifestyle, which ebbed and flowed as the sun and moon exchanged places in the sky and the earth twirled through different seasons. Despite often being portrayed as almost hyper primitive, animalistic and carnal ‘cavemen’, Neanderthals would often carve intricate paintings into the walls of their caves, and research shows increasingly convincing evidence that paintings had no motive other than aesthetic decoration of their cave walls, perhaps often through artistic expression of their psychedelic trips (Chauvet, 2006). This natural instinct to create a personalised space that serves to bring comfort, creativity and safety is demonstrated in its purest form in our children today, who create nests in their bedrooms and thoughtfully fill their spaces with the things they love, and a “‘keep out of my room” sign is not rebellion as much as it is an attempt to create a private haven (Heritage interiors, 2021).

As we evolved into modern humans and settled down, creating civilisations, and mobilizing the earth's elements into inventing increasingly complex creations, we naturally began beautifying and personalising our homes. Using art, jewells, fabrics, and establishing early forms of environmental psychology and interior design, such as the Chinese Feng Shui or the Indian Vastu Shastra, we consciously began exploring the connection between the way our senses translate our environment and our homes, and how it impacts the quality of our lives. Today, with the rise of neuroscience, combined with a re-emerging respect for the science of ancient eastern practices, “scientists are doing plenty of research on this topic and finding the most incredible results. They have shown the ability of interior design elements to evoke a positive or negative emotional response in people. These findings open the door to design spaces that consciously manipulate decorative elements with the goal of encouraging creativity, peace, and happiness” (Taylor, 2016). The threat of a lion attacking our homes has lessened, and a lot has become more accessible, and not exclusively limited to use by royalty. And while the world's richest still disproportionately own too much, and we have a myriad of modern challenges to disentangle, our ability to put energy into thriving and creating beauty, in every way, rather than purely surviving, is increasingly possible and arguably necessary for our progression as a species.

The space I call home is the main stage that holds so many moments in my life, the set I get to enrich with my own personal gathering of colours, textures, memories and things. It enriches me in return, this space that hugs me in moments of sadness, cotton pillowcases catching tears and the soft golden light of the lamp warming my anxious heart, slowing it’s pace to a steady beat. A space that stays waiting for me, that comforts me with its presence even when I’m not within its walls, as the outside world calls for my attention and I long for its influence.

And when I return to this home I can talk to myself out loud without looking ‘crazy’, clearing my mind and analysing the stream of thoughts that pass through me everyday, working to co-create who I am and who I'm becoming. I imagine the plants listen too as I water them, living things that grow and have found a home inside mine.

I can practice swaying my hips to any melody I choose, the frequency vibrating through the spine of my naked body which can finally breathe, free of the materials I choose to decorate it with. My personality bounces off the walls, I absorb it and reflect back the way I've grown since I last closed the door. I explore the space and the space explores me, creating and recreating our relationship with each other. My home is as alive as I am, an entity in its own right and sanctuary for authenticity.

Your home is your foundation, for the big life moments and the small ones, whether you're in it for 2 weeks or a lifetime. Whether you've teamed up with an architect to build it from scratch, or you're in uni halls, or a temporary council flat, you can make your space a home, an individualised sanctuary. While it undeniably comes more naturally to create a home in a house that is legally yours, many of us can’t afford the privilege we all deserve, people who are at a socioeconomic disadvantage, especially BIPOC ( Black, Indegenious and People of colour) and the intersections that exist within BIPOC. Nevertheless, there are still many ways to beautify and personalise your space and make it a home. Having grown up between houses, my mum always made sure it was ours, a place we could be proud of. We used cuttings to grow gorgeous plants that would embellish the walls and bring nature indoors, that we could grow and gift as presents or donations if we weren't able to move them around with us, or we’d instill warm lighting with lamps or fairy lights to create a sense of cosiness. I'm grateful to have adopted her commitment to building rest, joy and beauty in a space; and in part 2 of this blog series I will share the practicality of creating this in yours.

To claim a space as yours, and pour your love into it, everyone's birthright, despite a world that denies this for so many, is not just a luxury but a vital necessity, and arguably an act of rebellion. In a society where we are all growing increasingly aware of the fact that it's our responsibility, both personally and collectively, to create a better world, many of us are exhausted in the pursuit of a better world, be it through hyperproductivity or existential depression and numbness.

Tricia Hersey, founder of the organisation and movement ‘The Nap Ministry’ advocates for the fact that rest is a form of resistance against the overburden of things that are out of alignment in our world, that “justice looks like a space to rest” (Hersey, 2019) and that one crucial and often overlooked mode of social activism is in fact having a space for you, a space that instigates revitalisation.

Your home should be a place where you can feel the freedom to express yourself in any way you feel inclined to, changing as you do and bringing you into balance. When our spaces fulfills us as individuals, we can venture out into the world, full of energy to give back to the world. We’d be well rested and subsequently more creative, thinking of solutions to create lives outside of or through transforming the current corrupt systems we live in. Whether that's finding financial freedom, finding choices outside of the 9-5, discovering passions, being able to be more present with our loved ones, giving back to our communities through inspiring change or rest, or simply just smiling at strangers more. It's an abundant virtuous cycle.

As with so many things today, our relationship to interior fashion and architecture is simultaneously the best it's ever been and the worst it’s ever been. We over consume, behave selfishly and are over indulgent, sacrificing our wellbeing, communities, our futures and the Earth.

Simultaneously, we’ve utilised colour, learned how to transform natural pigment into paints and dyes that we can use abundantly. We’ve harnessed the elements and found ways to materialise tones, fabrics and mediums to create art through fashion and design in ways we could have only imagined in the past.

I trust that we can learn from our mistakes and transmute the negative aspects of our past and present, integrating all that works to create homes and spaces that completely change the way we experience ourselves and the world. Places that symbiotically honour us, our communities and nature.

Written by Dina Chehrazi

References:

Chauvet, G. (2006)

‘Why did prehistoric people draw in the caves?’

https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/why-did-prehistoric-people-draw-in-the-caves-grotte-chauvet/lQJiKr1gnrB2LQ?hl=en (Accessed 5/10/21)

Heritage Design Interiors Inc. (2021)

‘How interior design impacts your mental health’

https://heritagedesigninteriors.com/how-interior-design-impacts-your-mental-health/ (Accessed 5/10/21)

Taylor, C. (2016)

‘Aesthetics and wellbeing: How interior design affects your happiness’

https://psychologytomorrowmagazine.com/aesthetics-and-well-being-how-interior-design-affects-your-happiness/ (Accessed 5/10/21)

Hersey, T. (2019)

https://www.instagram.com/thenapministry/?hl=en (Accessed 5/10/21)

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