Q+A #018: Seetal Solanki [Materials Translator / Founder and Director of Ma-tt-er]
🗺️ Material Migration 💨 Marble Dust 🏠 Red Mud House 🌡️ Built Climate Intelligence 📚 Surrounded by Knowledge ⛩️ Obsession, Collecting and Rituals of Living
‘Storied Spaces’ is the RIALTO newsletter featuring ‘Q+A’, a bi-weekly column that features guest curators from the community, whom we invite to share inspiration from their home library. In each edit, you will hear from creatives we admire about the analogue inspirations that inform their work and vision.
Seetal Solanki is a materials translator, writer, researcher and founder of Ma-tt-er.
Through research, design and storytelling, she follows materials across people, places and processes, uncovering the lives, cultures and systems they shape. She is endlessly curious about movement, language, material intelligence and how we genuinely live.
Instagram: @seetalsolanki @ma_tt_er
Website: www.ma-tt-er.org
Q+A
[001] What is your favourite interior you’ve come across and why?
My favourite interior I’ve come across would have to be Thar House, my dear friends Dushyant and Priyanka’s studio and home at Studio Raw Material in Makrana, Rajasthan, India. I’ve had the privilege of witnessing it become what it is over time, and more recently of living within it for a few days. What moved me wasn’t simply the architecture or objects themselves, but the way the space felt deeply connected to the people, materials and landscape around it. Marble dust, stone fragments, larger-than-human-scale hemp paper lighting structures, vivid yet subtle textile tapestries, material experiments and everyday life all seemed to exist in conversation with one another. There were reflections of the landscape everywhere, with materials acting almost as mirrors of the land itself.
I remember herds of cows passing by and drinking from the green marble pool as I took my morning swim, shifts in light throughout the day, and electric storms rolling in to break the 40-degree heat. There was a rhythm to it all that felt entirely different from city life. It never felt designed for spectacle; it felt lived with. I think that’s what I’m always searching for in interiors: spaces that don’t impose themselves, but quietly reveal the people and worlds that shape them. Thar House belongs there.
Although I have to admit, shedding a tear at Tadao Ando’s Chichu Art Museum on Naoshima Island comes very close.
[002] What is your favourite piece in your collection?
These two light mills in my bedroom are probably my favourite objects. I wake up to them daily. I’m fascinated by the mystery of them: once sunlight touches them, the centre begins to spin as if by magic. I still don’t fully understand how they work and I like that. Sometimes not knowing is important. They remind me that there are things beyond my comprehension, and there’s something deeply humbling and alive in that feeling.
[003] Describe your dream interior if you had no budget restraints.
My dream interior would sit within a red mud house beside a gently flowing stream, surrounded by trees and not too far from dusty desert plains. I imagine a home that feels embedded within the landscape rather than imposed onto it. Small punctured windows would frame light carefully, with larger openings using louvres to allow air and shadows to move freely through the space.
The furniture would be simple and almost inseparable from the architecture itself, emerging from the walls and floors as though it belongs there rather than being placed within it. I’m not interested in clutter or excess; I’d want objects to feel adaptable, able to shift and move around the home depending on the needs of the day. Lots of nooks and assemblages would be placed deliberately around the home.
Everything would be made with materials of that place, alongside the people and knowledge systems rooted there. I’d also avoid air conditioning entirely and instead build climate intelligence into the home itself, allowing materials, ventilation and spatial design to do the work naturally. Ultimately, I’d want it to feel quiet, grounded and deeply connected to the land. Obviously not London, haha
[004] What has piqued your interest lately?
Lately, I’ve been interested in making again, working with my hands, becoming less dependent on my laptop and being more present. I recently returned from India with a suitcase full of khadi fabrics and, in many ways, it fed my soul. It feels like giving myself permission to become deeply obsessed with something that exists purely for me again. I can’t yet tell you exactly what I’ll be making and that uncertainty feels exciting. I’m trusting the process and, as always, letting the material guide me.
Being in India also reminded me of something that has fascinated me for years: the way landscapes and regions can become organised around materials. Moving between rural and urban environments, I kept noticing how marble, stone, salt and other materials seemed to shape not only place, but ways of living. I’ve seen this across many parts of the world and it continually reinforces my belief that materials carry their own intelligence, shaping identities, trade routes, skills and entire economies through their movement across people and places. Material migration is where my mind is right now, and I’m and I’m following its path across people, place and process.
[005] Can you share images of your interior and tell us a bit about it?
My home is filled with fabrics and objects collected through places I’ve visited and people I’ve met. I’m less interested in things as possessions and more interested in the stories they carry. Many of the textiles I own come directly from makers and craftspeople I’ve encountered, so I know where they came from, who touched them and the landscapes they belong to. Alongside these are curious objects that hold value for me beyond monetary or cultural worth.
Having other living beings in my home is also important to me. My plants feel like trees within my humble abode; they constantly communicate and keep me attuned to rhythms beyond my own. Scent and light are equally important. There is almost always incense burning and, at night, candles replace artificial lighting. It’s a way of creating softness and remaining centred rather than overwhelmed by constant artificial stimulus.
I also have far too many books, they’re currently spilling off my Vitsoe shelves and are in desperate need of an overhaul. But I’ve realised that I’m interested in being surrounded by knowledge in many forms. Not only books, but plants, textiles, food, cooking utensils, light and rituals all have something to teach me.
Despite all of this, I’m actually quite simple in how I approach my home. I don’t like to overdo it. I want my space to feel lived with rather than designed. It’s my sanctuary.
I. Deana Lawson
Deana Lawson’s work may be seen as a photography masterpiece, and rightly so, but what draws me in is the way her images sit somewhere between documentation and construction. Her photographs hold an intensity that feels almost cinematic, where every pose, object and detail appears deliberate without losing its humanity.
There is a quiet tension between intimacy and performance that I find incredibly compelling. I’m also drawn to the way her work explores identity not as something fixed, but as something layered and held through people, gestures and environments.
Many of her portraits unfold within people’s homes, and I love the honesty of that.
The interiors, objects and everyday surroundings never feel secondary; they quietly reveal something about the lives being lived and the people inhabiting them. Her photographs remind me that portraits are never only about individuals; they are also about atmosphere, relationships and everything that exists around them.
II. ‘Happy Victims’ by Kyoichi Tsuzuki
Happy Victims is one of those books that reminds me that people often reveal themselves most honestly through the things they choose to live with. Rather than polished or idealised interiors, it captures spaces shaped by obsession, collecting and deeply personal rituals of living. I’m always interested in how everyday objects accumulate meaning over time, becoming markers of identity, memory and desire. What I love about this book is that it celebrates the highly specific and sometimes excessive ways people build worlds around themselves.
III. ‘Cross-Cultural Chairs’ by Matteo Guarnaccia
Cross-Cultural Chairs reminds me that everyday objects often hold the deepest stories. Through something as familiar as a chair, the book opens up wider conversations around movement, place, culture and the body. I’m fascinated by the way materials and objects travel through people and geographies, carrying traces of different ways of living. What appears to be a simple catalogue of chairs gradually becomes a portrait of human behaviour itself.
IG Accounts to follow?
– @hoodmidcenturymodern
– @african_brutalism
– @navelichoyal
– @adireafricantextiles
– @cnshanbai
– @karuncollection
– @gangamaki
– @straft__
– @guzangs