A CONVERSATION WITH SU WU & AGE SALAJÕE

A CONVERSATION WITH SU WU & AGE SALAJÕE

Nestled amidst the vibrant streets of Mexico City, Su Wu embodies a serene fusion of artistry and editorial finesse. Renowned for her expert eye, she was recently appointed Curator-at-Large for MASA, a gallery that blurs the line between art and design. Her long standing creative partnership with Age Salajõe, the gallerist and curator behind MASA spans multiple exhibitions, a testament to how the two continue to challenge how contemporary design and craft can be conceptualised and contextualised.

In this conversation, we speak to both Su and Age, about their partnership and process. They share their recommendations for a day in Mexico City and how they approach their personal style.

WHO, WHAT AND WHERE DO YOU TURN to for inspiration?

I have been finding a lot of inspiration in mistranslation. Like, I just went to this restaurant in Oaxaca City and the chef brought my kids an off-menu bowl of soft serve ice cream with a kitchen squeeze bottle labeled “soy sauce” but made with frijoles negros instead of soybeans. And my tongue was a little unconvinced, to be honest, but my heart leapt. Or I was just looking at a friend’s textile research into Japanese interpretations of calico print, brush-painted instead of block-print. I just love how much sincerity (but not intention) there is in getting things wrong, and how these objects provoke a consideration, in design most of all, of what we think of as authenticity.

- Su.

Su wears the Florence Blouse and Skirt, Age

wears the Bella Drape Dress.

DOES THE SUBJECT OR THE MATERIAL COME FIRST WHEN CURATING AN EXHIBITION?

Oh, I love this question! I think this is the difference, for me, between curation and loving things. Everyone is hungry for beauty. Which, I mean, is not to say that it isn’t hard to achieve or matched to the practice of living well, and what a real brilliance there is in the clarity of personal style – but for so long I would get tangled and often derailed from this by wanting to attach reason to emotion, by this inclination to not just gather what I like but to try to figure out why. Anyway, I guess this is all to say that I feel really, really lucky to have finally worked my way to some guiding preoccupations – some subjects – that maybe have no pre-determination on their own, but that shape how I consider the material of the world, and then to have found work that sometimes allows it.

- Su.

Su wears the Mila Ribbed Cardigan and Stella Skirt.

HOW DO YOU APPROACH DAY-TO-DAY DRESSING?

I will always and forever have a soft spot for unflattering clothes – things that defy their ostensible function. Like, it’s fine if pants give me a nice butt, but where are the pants that will give me a non-human butt! Most of the time, I tend to dress a little louche: slippers and mules, very fussy about fabrics and textiles, things barely held together, messy hair. Though I read this interview once with a writer whose work I admire, who explained she liked to get dressed to work – even if that work was writing at a desk in her home – and so she would put on clear-heeled stripper shoes to write.

- Su.

HOW DID YOUR CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP FORM AND HOW HAS IT GROWN OVER TIME?

Age found me my very first apartment in Mexico City. I didn’t even know her at the time – we’d only just been introduced in passing. Then I remember meeting her for lunch and having this wild idea for an exhibition, like in retrospect veering too close into beliefs about extraterrestrials that maybe you’d only tell a stranger if you hadn’t had extended human interaction for a year, which was me at that point. And that show didn’t end up happening, the alien that lives in my head wouldn’t allow it, but Age has this intense brilliant generosity for ideas – and I mean this with the truest love – also this tolerance for letting them go. I think our creative partnership has grown because we’ve pushed some things through together so hard that during it I thought I would break apart and we somehow managed and now I would trust her with anything, that are now the projects that have made my life, and just as many very good ideas that we had to drop, that no one else knows about, and that didn’t kill us, either.

- Su.

Su wears the Mila Ribbed Cardigan and Stella Skirt Age wears the Mila Ribbed Cardigan and Penny Skirt.

FIVE PLACES TO VISIT IN MEXICO CITY?

1. Drink at El Minutito, the artist Lucas Cantu’s new coffee shop and bar in Juarez

2. MASA!

3. Maximo Bistrot, run by Gabriela Lopez Cruz and chef Lalo Garcia, and Rosetta, helmed by chef Elena Reygadas. These are beloved classics for a reason.

4. Museo Anahuacalli, the building designed by Juan O’Gorman and Diego Rivera to hold Rivera’s collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, and with a recent contemporary addition by Mauricio Rocha.

5. Lagunilla flea market on Sunday, best before noon.

- Su.

Age wears the Bella Drape Dress.

HOW DID masa form, and in what ways has it evolved since its conception?

MASA was formed out of friendship with the desire to do things differently and to put on good shows. It was a conversation that Brian Thoreen and Hector Esrawe had been having for a couple of years before MASA launched in February 2019 with our bonkers Collective/Collectible show curated by Su. We started as a nomadic collectible design gallery, inviting artists, architects, and designers to create design work. With this idea, we loved exploring where artists' minds went when given the task to create functional pieces. There is a lot of conversation to be had in this grey area, and MASA allows us to explore design at its boundaries while including art, sculpture, or even film. After being nomadic for four years, we opened our gallery space in Mexico City a year ago to have some roots in the ground, but also to allow for more regular programming and closer collaboration with artists, curators, and other galleries. We have had the honor of having Su with us from the very start, and she has been an integral part of our evolution and where we are heading as our Curator-at-Large

- Age.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS?

My working process is very intuitive but also creative. I have created a methodology for myself to be able to manage the four companies. What I love about MASA is that it is a place where we are constantly in conversation and in an exchange of ideas, which is highly inspiring and stimulating either that being between us, our artists and designers, collaborators, or curators. All of it with a little bit of humor and play mixed in.

- Age.

Age wears the Bella Drape Dress.

HOW DOES ART AND DESIGN INFORM THE WAY YOU LIVE AND WORK?

I would say it is imbedded in everything I do, from aesthetically speaking to my work methodology.

- Age.

WHAT ARE YOU READING, WATCHING, OR LISTENING TO THAT YOU WOULD RECOMMEND?

I am about to finish a book called “Breath” by James Nestor. Which I would highly recommend, it makes you realize how we don't know how to breathe at all.

- Age.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL STYLE, HOW DO YOU APPROACH CURATING YOUR WARDROBE?

I love to find those special pieces that complete my wardrobe. It is a lot about the fabrics and shapes, but mostly I think It is also very intuitive. It is more about what catches my eye and makes me excited.

- Age.

Su Wu @imrevolting

Age Salajõe Age Salajõe

https://mmaassaa.com/

Images: @maureenme

A CONVERSATION WITH SU WU & AGE SALAJÕE

Nestled amidst the vibrant streets of Mexico City, Su Wu embodies a serene fusion of artistry and editorial finesse. Renowned for her expert eye, she was recently appointed Curator-at-Large for MASA, a gallery that blurs the line between art and design. Her long standing creative partnership with Age Salajõe, the gallerist and curator behind MASA spans multiple exhibitions, a testament to how the two continue to challenge how contemporary design and craft can be conceptualised and contextualised.

In this conversation, we speak to both Su and Age, about their partnership and process. They share their recommendations for a day in Mexico City and how they approach their personal style.

WHO, WHAT AND WHERE DO YOU TURN to for inspiration?

I have been finding a lot of inspiration in mistranslation. Like, I just went to this restaurant in Oaxaca City and the chef brought my kids an off-menu bowl of soft serve ice cream with a kitchen squeeze bottle labeled “soy sauce” but made with frijoles negros instead of soybeans. And my tongue was a little unconvinced, to be honest, but my heart leapt. Or I was just looking at a friend’s textile research into Japanese interpretations of calico print, brush-painted instead of block-print. I just love how much sincerity (but not intention) there is in getting things wrong, and how these objects provoke a consideration, in design most of all, of what we think of as authenticity.

- Su.

Su wears the Florence Blouse and Skirt, Age wears the Bella Drape Dress.

DOES THE SUBJECT OR THE MATERIAL COME FIRST WHEN CURATING AN EXHIBITION?

Oh, I love this question! I think this is the difference, for me, between curation and loving things. Everyone is hungry for beauty. Which, I mean, is not to say that it isn’t hard to achieve or matched to the practice of living well, and what a real brilliance there is in the clarity of personal style – but for so long I would get tangled and often derailed from this by wanting to attach reason to emotion, by this inclination to not just gather what I like but to try to figure out why. Anyway, I guess this is all to say that I feel really, really lucky to have finally worked my way to some guiding preoccupations – some subjects – that maybe have no pre-determination on their own, but that shape how I consider the material of the world, and then to have found work that sometimes allows it.

- Su.

Su wears the Mila Ribbed Cardigan and Stella Skirt.

HOW DO YOU APPROACH DAY-TO-DAY DRESSING?

I will always and forever have a soft spot for unflattering clothes – things that defy their ostensible function. Like, it’s fine if pants give me a nice butt, but where are the pants that will give me a non-human butt! Most of the time, I tend to dress a little louche: slippers and mules, very fussy about fabrics and textiles, things barely held together, messy hair. Though I read this interview once with a writer whose work I admire, who explained she liked to get dressed to work – even if that work was writing at a desk in her home – and so she would put on clear-heeled stripper shoes to write.

- Su.

HOW DID YOUR CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP FORM AND HOW HAS IT GROWN OVER TIME?

Age found me my very first apartment in Mexico City. I didn’t even know her at the time – we’d only just been introduced in passing. Then I remember meeting her for lunch and having this wild idea for an exhibition, like in retrospect veering too close into beliefs about extraterrestrials that maybe you’d only tell a stranger if you hadn’t had extended human interaction for a year, which was me at that point. And that show didn’t end up happening, the alien that lives in my head wouldn’t allow it, but Age has this intense brilliant generosity for ideas – and I mean this with the truest love – also this tolerance for letting them go. I think our creative partnership has grown because we’ve pushed some things through together so hard that during it I thought I would break apart and we somehow managed and now I would trust her with anything, that are now the projects that have made my life, and just as many very good ideas that we had to drop, that no one else knows about, and that didn’t kill us, either.

- Su.

Su wears the Mila Ribbed Cardigan and Stella Skirt Age wears the Mila Ribbed Cardigan and Penny Skirt.

FIVE PLACES TO VISIT IN MEXICO CITY?

1. Drink at El Minutito, the artist Lucas Cantu’s new coffee shop and bar in Juarez

2. MASA!

3. Maximo Bistrot, run by Gabriela Lopez Cruz and chef Lalo Garcia, and Rosetta, helmed by chef Elena Reygadas. These are beloved classics for a reason.

4. Museo Anahuacalli, the building designed by Juan O’Gorman and Diego Rivera to hold Rivera’s collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, and with a recent contemporary addition by Mauricio Rocha.

5. Lagunilla flea market on Sunday, best before noon.

- Su.

Age wears the Bella Drape Dress.

HOW DID masa form, and in what ways has it evolved since its conception?

MASA was formed out of friendship with the desire to do things differently and to put on good shows. It was a conversation that Brian Thoreen and Hector Esrawe had been having for a couple of years before MASA launched in February 2019 with our bonkers Collective/Collectible show curated by Su. We started as a nomadic collectible design gallery, inviting artists, architects, and designers to create design work. With this idea, we loved exploring where artists' minds went when given the task to create functional pieces. There is a lot of conversation to be had in this grey area, and MASA allows us to explore design at its boundaries while including art, sculpture, or even film. After being nomadic for four years, we opened our gallery space in Mexico City a year ago to have some roots in the ground, but also to allow for more regular programming and closer collaboration with artists, curators, and other galleries. We have had the honor of having Su with us from the very start, and she has been an integral part of our evolution and where we are heading as our Curator-at-Large

- Age.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS?

My working process is very intuitive but also creative. I have created a methodology for myself to be able to manage the four companies. What I love about MASA is that it is a place where we are constantly in conversation and in an exchange of ideas, which is highly inspiring and stimulating either that being between us, our artists and designers, collaborators, or curators. All of it with a little bit of humor and play mixed in.

- Age.

Age wears the Bella Drape Dress.

HOW DOES ART AND DESIGN INFORM THE WAY YOU LIVE AND WORK?

I would say it is imbedded in everything I do, from aesthetically speaking to my work methodology.

- Age.

WHAT ARE YOU READING, WATCHING, OR LISTENING TO THAT YOU WOULD RECOMMEND?

I am about to finish a book called “Breath” by James Nestor. Which I would highly recommend, it makes you realize how we don't know how to breathe at all.

- Age.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL STYLE, HOW DO YOU APPROACH CURATING YOUR WARDROBE?

I love to find those special pieces that complete my wardrobe. It is a lot about the fabrics and shapes, but mostly I think It is also very intuitive. It is more about what catches my eye and makes me excited.

- Age.

Su Wu @imrevolting

Age Salajõe Age Salajõe

https://mmaassaa.com/

Images: @maureenme