The Wick Culture - Interview Everything I Want Founder, Nadja Romain

Monday Muse

Interview Everything I Want Founder, Nadja Romain

Interview

Nadja Romain

01 July 2024

Interview

Nadja Romain

01 July 2024

Nadja Romain’s illustrious career has spanned art, fashion, curation and social activism. The Paris-born entrepreneur gained an MA in Art History and subsequently worked in media and film, working as a producer with artists including Ron Arad, Matthew Barney, Isaac Julien and Chila Burman, among others. In 2019, Romain founded Art Action Change, a charity dedicated to social progress and education through the arts.

Romain now calls Venice home – it’s there she established her gallery Lo Studio – Nadja Romain, and online retailer Everything I Want – a multidisciplinary hub for artists, designers and artisans that hopes to foster a dialogue between high end craft and visual and decorative arts, with a special focus on Murano glass. Everything I Want hopes to change consumer habits and raise awareness about the impact of purchases – promoting like minded creatives whose practices aim for a sustainable future.

We caught up with Romain about the benefits – and challenges – of working in Venice, her advocacy for sustainability – and which book she’d take to a desert island.

THE WICK: What’s your typical Monday?

Nadja Romain: Like every day, I start with green tea and meditation. Monday is also one of my training days to quick-start the week. Now that I have opened Lo Studio- Nadja Romain in Venice – which is both a studio and a gallery, my weekly routine has changed. On Monday I catch up with the team and the work out map for the week.

TW: How and why did you come to set up Lo Studio – Nadja Romain?

NR: I moved to Venice four years ago. Brexit made me leave London, where I thought I would stay forever. In the meantime as a child my dream was to live in Italy. Venice won because I started to come often to develop Murano glass projects. In the process I became obsessed with glassmaking and felt Venice was my home. I didn’t choose Venice. Venice chose me.

TW: Why do you see Venice as the laboratory of the future?

NR: It is still the most international in Italy. The first art Biennale was created in 1895 in Venice. Venice is so small and it is like a laboratory where creatives from all over the world mingle. It has several universities and research institutes. I believe we create a model here of how to live with rising seas, restore a fragile ecosystem, win the demographic battle by creating job opportunities for young people and bring an alternative to an economy which relies on mass tourism. Problems that ain’t specific to Venice – but here as a small community, solutions can be found and implanted.

TW: During the Venice Biennale, you co-curated Osman Yousefzada’s exhibition Welcome! A Palazzo for Immigrants. Why is Osman’s work important and what can we take from it?

NR: Osman is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice involves films, textile pieces, drawings, ceramic and glass, as well as moving images, two dimensional and three dimensional works, and of course literature and poetry. He is a kind of Renaissance artist, with so many talents. He explores themes of unity, movement, trade and migration in today’s society, and is strongly informed by his own biography as the son of a family of immigrants with Pakistani and Afghan origins. From Osman’s exhibition you take emotions, beauty, something deeply spiritual it takes you in a dimension beyond yourself. For me Osman’s work is about the human soul. But that’s my personal interpretation.

“I believe we create a model here of how to live with rising seas, restore a fragile ecosystem, win the demographic battle by creating job opportunities for young people and bring an alternative to an economy which relies on mass tourism.”

Nadja Romain

The Wick Culture - Conrad Shawcross- Platform Earth Exhibition-Il Palazzo Experimental Vence Biennale 2024

The Wick Culture - Tarek Shamma Lo Studio - Nadja Romain Capri 2023 2

The Wick Culture - Opening Osman Yousefzada Venice Biennale

The Wick Culture - Art Action Change today announced the landmark art installation project ‘The Ship of Tolerance’ is coming to London. The iconic artwork by leading conceptual artists Emilia Kabakov (right) is being created at London’s Royal Docks from the 3rd – 31st August 2019, before heading to the River Thames at the Tate Modern, Bankside from 4th September – 7th October 2019.

‘The Ship of Tolerance’ was first launched in Siwa Egypt in 2005, to engage children and young adults in an active discussion surrounding tolerance in their daily lives. The seminal art project has since been to New York, La Havana, Zug, Venice, Miami, UAE and Rome with the mission of ‘The Ship of Tolerance’ being to educate and connect the youth of different continents, cultures and identities through the language of art.

TW: As a gallerist and a curator, what has been your biggest work challenge to date?

NR: The biggest challenge for me is always the next project. Having said that, having four exhibitions this year in the Biennale has been very challenging! All super exciting, but it was a lot. Venice is not an easy place to get around and get things done. The paradox in Venice is to organise projects as if we were in London when we live in a town with less than 49,000 residents, built on the water and with rather limited working forces.

TW: Tell us more about your commitment to promoting indigenous communities through special projects, like your partnerships with Mola Sasa or Nzuri Textiles?

NR: Indigenous communities have been a large part of my journey. Mainly through my travels in Brazil and Asia. I got a lot of inspiration from there and would say my focus on craft came from there. It’s very satisfying to see the difference you can make in a community by keeping artisanal knowledge alive and developing the knowledge so you can produce goods that will attract a global audience and therefore create a market. This is what both Mola Sasa and Nzuri Textile are doing. They create luxury products with indigenous communities. We have represented them on my website everything-iwant.com (a destination for conscious luxury) since the beginning.

TW: Can you tell us more about your philanthropic work, such as Women for Women International and VDay. Why is it important to you to support and show solidarity with other women in the industry?

TW: I grew up in Paris in a rather intellectual environment. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir was my bible as a teenager. My godmother who had such an influence on me, knew Simone and was a feminist and activist. It’s something I have carried with me all my life. I can’t stand injustice.

NR: I grew up in Paris in a rather intellectual environment. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir was my bible as a teenager. My godmother who had such an influence on me, knew Simone and was a feminist and activist. It’s something I have carried with me all my life. I can’t stand injustice.

I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to support organisations like Women for Women International and V Day and that has been a great source of inspiration for me.

TW: What book would you take with you to a desert island, and why?

NR: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the translation by Robert Thurman. The book explores the nature of the mind, notions of karma, impermanence and rebirth. Perfect if you are alone on an island with no distraction but that to understand the nature of your mind.

TW: Who is your personal Monday Muse?

NR: My mother. No matter what, she should always show up and start the week with a smile.