When you greet someone on the street in Taiwan, you say, “Hey, have you eaten yet?” instead of “How are you?” It’s a way of making sure someone’s taken care of, and that’s how I approach design. It was the best way for us to maintain our connection with our culture, and this idea seeps into how I work. We’d eat as much as we could of dim sum dishes, and my aunts would stock up on Asian groceries. On the weekend we would drive two hours to Portland where there were bigger Vietnamese and Chinese communities. I was the only Asian kid in my school and there were no Asian grocery stores in town. I was born in Taiwan, but then we moved to the U.S. LEE: There is nothing that can compare with the connection that food brings to people. When I was living in Seven Sisters, in North London, I found a Latino market, and it was the only place in London I’ve found the little empanada discs I need to make my pastelitos for the holidays. On the census in London, they don’t even have Latino as a category, but there are Latinos in London. Then moving to London, I became this embodiment of American-ness and often had to explain I was actually first-generation and didn’t grow up encountering certain quintessential American traditions. ![]() When I went to Philly, it was a shock, losing that immediate identification as a Dominican person. You can’t live in New York and not know what a Dominican person is. The Dominican diaspora is concentrated in North Jersey, Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. RIVERA: I think before I took for granted people’s understanding or interpretation of me. What has moving to a new place changed most for you? We had the idea we were taking a very trad Windsor chair and almost passing it through a filter, like it was refracted in water. ![]() LEE: Did you feel like that was accurate? It took on this Gen-Z narrative of anxiety and youthful angst. ![]() When we launched the chair in March 2021, it was like we shot it out of a T-shirt gun. We got into a shared space, Blackhorse Workshop, and we built this chair with our baby strapped to my chest. It was like we were both having these existential crises, and then with this doodle, a light bulb went off. One day Grant made this sketch, a very early rendition of our Windsor chair. It was ammunition enough to take the plunge. I was working as an interior designer for this small company, Fran Hickman Design & Interiors, and on a plane back to New York every other month for installs or a site visit. It was this massive change and we needed to restructure our lives. RIVERA: We were always thinking one day we’ll do something together. Was it something you’d been wanting to do for a while? It’s interesting what develops from a moment of crisis or disruption, whether it’s the recession or the pandemic when you started your studio, Teresa. ![]() (This interview was edited for length and clarity.) Lee at Ladies & Gentlemen’s Red Hook work space to talk about how hybrid understandings of place have influenced their practices. Rivera was in New York for a visit in January, she joined Ms. Lee, the founder, with Dylan Davis, of the 13-year-old design company Ladies & Gentlemen, a culturally complex upbringing has helped shape furniture, jewelry and light fixtures characterized by what the designers call “playful austerity.” Rivera, who co-founded the studio Wilkinson & Rivera with her husband, Grant Wilkinson, in 2020, it has meant working together to reimagine traditional timber furniture, like a Windsor chair, with visually destabilizing squiggly lines.įor Ms. Jean Lee, 40, emigrated from Taiwan to Oregon as a child and today splits her practice between Brooklyn and Seattle.Įach designer’s experience recreating familiar elements in new contexts has influenced how she makes objects. Teresa Rivera, 30, grew up in New York’s Dominican diaspora but now lives in London. People with a history of moving between worlds bring a unique perspective to designing for the home. This article is part of our Design special section on how the recent push for diversity in design is changing the way the world looks.
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