From the EArth: Collaboration between Matka and Issey Roquet, photographed by Anastassia Tretiakova
When I saw Issey Roquet’s ceramics, which I found through the small artistic community of Valencia, Spain, I felt an immediate affinity to her sensibility and that I wanted to photograph her studio and her ceramics. I had also been a long time admirer of Cecilia Portela’s brand MATKA, who works with artisans from Nepal who hand weave and sew her capsule clothing collection. Both Issey and Cecilia work with natural elements at the forefront of their creativity and I intuitively paired them together before either one agreed to this proposal.
Below are the selection of images created between the three of us in Issey’s ceramic studio in Valencia from this special and serendipitous collaboration.
Fig. 01
About Issey:
Issey is a French Chinese ceramicist based in Valencia, Spain.
After 8 years as an animator, she turns to clay as a medium of expression.
Her work focuses on craft and timelessness — ceramics made to be lived with and to age beautifully.
Blending influences from East and West, her work is shaped by memories of her childhood in China and Thailand; and a renewed connection to her Latin roots, from her new studio by the Mediterranean Sea.
She works from her hands using local clay and develops her glazes in-house.
Fig. 02
Fig. 03
About MATKA
“MATKA was unexpectedly conceived during my first trip to Nepal in 2014. I consider it a very personal project focused on provenance, materia (lat. matter/material), and shape. It grows and evolves organically and it neither follows trends nor the rules set by the industry, such as producing seasonal collections or doing sales.”
— Founder Cecilia Portela
PROVENANCE
At Matka, we work directly with the local weavers, dyers, and tailors.
This allows us to control the entire making process, in terms of working conditions, wages, and the quality of the final product.
LIMITED EDITIONS
We are actively against mass production.
All our garments are individually hand cut by our master tailor Binod in Kathmandu, Nepal.
PERMANENT ONGOING COLLECTION
We nurture one unique collection, slowly introducing new pieces as we come up with new materials and ideas.
BIODEGRADABLE
We work exclusively with 100% natural fibres, most of them hand woven in traditional looms.
All our buttons are made with hand carved and hand polished water buffalo bone, sourced in the Nepalese riverbanks.
THOUGHTFUL DESIGNS
Our aim is to create timeless, versatile, long lasting pieces, governed by quality over quantity.
We try our best to go as much zero waste as possible.
ETHOS
We strongly believe that the seasonal calendar dictated by the fashion industry is obsolete and we encourage other labels to stop producing in that manner.
We respect and value craftsmanship and promote conscious consumption.
Fig. 04
Fig. 05
Fig. 06
