FILED UNDER

Ask any person to describe the most treasured object they possess and they’ll tell you a story. In Jina Khayyer’s case when asked to turn the blank silk carrée into a treasured piece of Khayyer she tells us a story. A love story. An autobiographical love story. The morning after a clubby night. Waking in someone else’s bed. The first night spent together. The other still asleep.  A cat roams the apartment. Paris.

Why Jina chose that story? Because it captures the moment in a love affair when everything is still open; when it is still a white empty page much like the silk scarf. And so the narrator rambles on about her assumptions of the girl beside her, pieces together a person from the fragments of some scattered hours, not even making a day.

At the beginning of the story a character aptly penned Siddharta advises the narrator: ”If you write your wishes down, they’ll become true.”

Years after the love affair ended - it became “true” and lasted for two solid years - Jina prints the story of that first morning in single letters, all capitals, black ink on canvas. The story is thus rendered into an ornamental pattern, a most elegant nod to Zoroastrian calligraphic tradition and Jina’s Persian heritage. Like a prayer or a song. If you wish to hear the melody, wrap yourself in her story. (Text by Eva Munz)

After studying painting at the prestigious Bauhaus academy of Dessau, 1975-born Jina Khayyer moved to Munich to get a degree at the German school of Journalism. Now working from Paris and Sao Paulo, Khayyer is a journalist and writer for newspapers and magazines such as FAZ, ZEIT online, 032c, The Gentlewoman or Fantastic Man. Having a long-time experience in fashion business and journalism, Jina Khayyer is a renowned expert for a high approach to fashion, design and art. She helped internationals brands like ACNE to launch and was fashion editor for magazines like Stern and Neon. She wrote exhibition texts such as for Munichs Haus der Kunst show about Maison Martin Margiela and is a Guest Professor at Parsons The New School For Design in New York and at Escola Sao Paulo.