About
In one sentence: “Mayari is a designer & artist who turns trash into treasure.” (Feel free to copy/paste this sentence.)
DRY FACTS: (Feel free to play with these facts.)
Artistname/Brandname: Mayari
Real name: Tanja Burgdorfer
Origin: Born in Emmental, Switzerland
Studies: ZHdK (School of Design and Fine Arts Zurich)
Work experience in: Fashion-, Product-, Jewellery-, Exhibition-, Web-, Graphic-design
Starting up: Working as Mayari since spring 2009, seriously aiming to make Mayari’s products for a living since spring 2010.
PASSION: Inventing totally environmentally and people friendly designed solutions; especially creating design-art products from trash preferably using hand powered tools only!
VISION: A tomorrow full of products, works and offers which are totally responsibly made. Future products will neither use virgin, toxic and non renewable materials nor involve any slave labour.
INTERESTS: art&design, the Internet as a tool, anthropology, low carbon traveling, organic/fair trade food and goods, tinkering
Good in: making the most out of nothing, finding patterns, seeing the big picture focusing on the sunny sides of things avoiding the bad ones, accuracy in my artworks, listening, watching
Bad in: exaggerating, bluffing, talking much, speeding things up, excluding things.
For more curious people: [note to myself: Needs editing... too much information isn't good sometimes. Too much philosophy for the public?!]
“Who are you?”
I’m Mayari born as Tanja Burgdorfer, I’m a “designer-artist”, I’m a human being, I think.
“Where do you come from?”
I come from Switzerland’s beautiful countryside: the Emmental. Also, I’m the result of a lovely mixed couple (I’m a Swiss/Philippina and find my mixed heritage very interesting). Growing older, my environment got more and more urban. I went to school in Bern, studied in Zurich [note to myself: Insert link to prove], lived in Shanghai and now I’m in London [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. Sometimes I miss the by culture relatively untouched environments (nature) but then again I prefer to live in a multicultural city.
Connecting the dots, I have always been interested in the making and designing of things and tinkering [note to myself: Insert link to prove] has always been one of my favourite activities. Later on, I got (a little bit) more serious. I began using more professional techniques like sewing and worked at a fashion designer [note to myself: Insert link to prove] for more than one year mostly creating beautiful, unique and precious wedding gowns from silk. I also worked with a product designer in Shanghai using the computer for visualizing ideas, doing research and making models. I helped an interior designer creating larger installations and fiddled with tiny bits on a micro level being mentored by a great goldsmith [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. After my graduation I worked in graphic and web design communicating sustainable practices [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. At uni, I took extra classes in figure drawing, cast techniques, bookbinding, Mandarin as a foreign language, psychology and biology. I’m an explorer.
Looking back, I always enjoyed those things the most that involved visceral experiences and the accurate creating of relatively small things which have little negative impacts on our environment. Sometimes I wonder what made me a visual thinker and tactile person who cares so much about our environment. You know, this doesn’t make my life particularly easy in today’s environment and system… [note to myself: Insert link to prove] However, I love to be challenged!
“What do you do?”
By education I’m a designer, at heart an artist. At the moment, I’m starting up as an entrepreneur. Waste management, product development and design, marketing, networking and philosophy is what I’m dealing with a lot nowadays.
“What’s so special about how you do things?”
My way of doing things is doing them totally fair and sustainable, with a more personal touch and absolutely transparent in comparison to what one can normally find at present [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. At least that’s what I’m hoping and aming for! To me, using up things (like materials that can’t sustainably grow because a) we don’t leave them alone, or b) we don’t care enough for them) or damadging things we don’t own respectively everyone owns equally (like clean air and water, wild animals and trees), in short: exploitation is an absolutely no go to mayari. Is this why I need to create things from what I can find and get from my near environment for free? [note to myself: Insert link to prove]
Using my hands and my brain to express my views and materialize to communicate my ways is not enough to me which is why I can’t see myself as a pure artist. I strongly have the ambition and urge to serve other people and solve problems which is why I see myself more as a designer [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. Basically, I’m stuck in the middle being both a problem-finder-and-solver and an upon-modern-culture-reflecting-items-creator. There’s yet another new term emerging used by experts in the field of modern design: “designer-artist” [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. Maybe that’s what I should call myself. Or simply a “modern times crafts woman”? I’ll never know.
My truth is, I just can’t help developing and creating a range of adorable “design-art” works – it’s just Mayari’s nature and I love doing it. Mostly and ideally I do that upon order as commissioned works or in collaboration with lovely, responsibly operating enterprises [note to myself: Insert link to prove]! To me, life is not about tricking people to do (and buy) things that aren’t very wise or respectable. Promoting things that aren’t healthy in the long run is not my cup of tea. I feel life is not about giving others a tiny bit of the pie and taking the biggest piece for oneself [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. It’s about equal giving and equal taking. This is tough because it’s against the me-me-me culture we created [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. In the long run sharing I feel is more rewarding than taking and I prefer the marathon over the sprint.
Oh, and one more thing… by design I am developing simple products that require no energy neither for its production nor for its use. It’s true: all the tools I need to create my treasures so far are hand powered tools! This can be seen as so very “last century” [note to myself: Insert link to prove], but I like it that way; I’m restricted and therefore even more challenged that way. Physical labour (within limits of course) is doing and feeling good for my mind and soul. (On a sidenote: Thinking wouldn’t exist without a body, would it? What if the hand nourishes the brain and vice versa… [note to myself: Insert link to prove]) Working by hand I leave myself space for practice, technique and over time it becomes sort of a meditational activity. Besides, I stay mobile and save on electricity. Everything is constantly changeing and the material world has limits. We tend to forget that.
In the world of bits and bites, of zeros and ones, it’s all a different story. I can’t see limits in this world (except if we would run out of energy and the raw material for producing our gadgets) [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. My laptop, my camera and my phone; in today’s and tomorrow’s world they are necessities if one wants to be part of an educated society [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. I use them for correspondence, networking, business management, documentation, visual communication and marketing, entertainment and of course learning. Yes, they are powered by electricity (and I wished I knew where this power was extracted from).
You still think this is crazy? Let me explain again why I stick to this extrem of not using energy powered tools. The bottom line is: I want to be able to make the design-art I create wherever I go. In an ideal world, I’m able to wander around working as a modern nomad crafts person, leaving very little environmental footprints behind. This means, my ideal workshop fits into a suitcase. There you go, I said it. Up to date, it still does, which is – considering the range of my products – [note to myself: Insert link to prove] almost an art by itself already, don’t you think?
“Who cares? Who are you talking to?”
Especially, I would like to address forward thinking minds who are willing to take responsibility for their actions and purchases. Actually, I would love to listen and speak to everyone. But experience made obious that it’s easier to connect to those people who care about planet earth already [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. To those who are interested in the big picture; these individuals tend to understand better my motivations and my products. People who are not looking to get just any cheap product but natural and human creations that are true treasures – carefully designed from the sourcing of the raw materials over the production process to logistics, actual use and the disposal [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. I wish everybody could afford to look for those treasures and truely care.
“Why are you on planet earth?”
There’s constant change but I feel I’m here to turn trash into treasure (and make it a future craft). It took me a very long time to figure this out. (Time I took because I couldn’t find access to the workspaces/tribes I was aiming for – or in other words: because I was jobless, ambitious, stubborn, curious and kept exploring and most of all questioning our world) [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. It is not easy to be proud of my talent since turning trash into tresure is not necessarily something to be considered prestigeous. Still, upcycling for and with others is my big passion and my special skill.
“What is your vision?”
In the future all the simple products will no longer be mass produced under questionable condicions from virgin materials [note to myself: Insert link to prove] but carefully and locally (hand)made from trash. People will all care more, have a great education, peace of mind and more compassion: we will all be the change [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. I know this is crazy – but in a good way.
“Be the change – but how?”
I feel that
there’s too much talking and not enough making – so talk less and make more, yes, just do it,
there’s too much following blindly and not enough thinking for oneself – so think twice more often,
there’s too much greed and not enough sharing – so equally give & take more often,
there’s too much me-me-me and not enough the other – so balance out the I and the you and get to the we,
there’s too much competition and not enough collaboration – so let’s work together,
there’s too much lying and not enough honesty – so be truthful as much as possible,
there’s too much suspicion and not enough trust – so don’t cheat,
there’s too much ignorance and not enough compassion – so do care more often,
there’s too much poverty with many individuals and too much wealth with a few individuals; there is not enough equality – so if you have some, give it to the ones in need (which should not be too difficult); if you are in need, take some from the ones who have it all (which might be tougher), whatever you do, try to level out
there’s too much male characteristics in power earning more respect and not enough female traits – embrace your inner girl more often and be proud of it [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. Women out there: don’t devalue your work (like house work) and your characteristics (like being emotional)! It’s possible that we women do NOT need to become more like a male person to acheive success! Redefine success [note to myself: Insert link to prove].
“Why do you think so?”
I’m a kid of the new generation (if not a new age) and I’m endlessly curious and questioning things [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. I’m blessed to be connected to the Internet. I’m able to critically search for all the answers to my questions [note to myself: Insert link to prove]. I can watch very interesting channels like documentary movies by yhe BBC or listen to real experiences that “real” (ok, often educated and well connected) people made on TED [note to myself: Insert link to prove] and kind of educate myself while making my design-art. Go, take your time and see and listen to these inspiring “real” people on TED.com, fora.tv, bigthink.com an the like. Do it next to preparing your meal if you can’t find the time. Just do it. I wonder what this does to you. Enjoy, keep qustioning and look with all your senses! Thanks.
