Where are we from, and where are we going?

So often we find ourselves too focused on the next steps of life without realising the connections that already existed. For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to become a designer. Since completing my studies and starting my career in commercial interiors, I realised that this love for furniture, property, hospitality and everything in between didn't fall far from the tree. In fact, I could trace it all the way back to my motherland.

In Autumn 2019, on my first trip travelling around India, I was fortunate to discover that my fascination and love for this industry was almost something innate in the family lineage. Before arriving in Punjab, I had little knowledge of the scope of the family's business and it was on this trip that I got the privilege to see the scale of the operation. It was there, in a large industrial factory located off a dirt road from the main city of Ludhiana, that I got the first opportunity to visit my family's factory. Located over two floors of a vast warehouse, I was able to experience the parallels of old and new age craftsmanship working alongside each other. Workers would occupy the floors of the main workshop, sharply focused in their crafting of elements of joinery whilst state of the art new machinery manufactured more intricately detailed design elements. Here, production of these pieces of high end furniture would eventually fit out luxury residential properties in and around the entire state of Punjab and it was incredible to see the mix of true artisan skill with modern day technology.

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The skill and the detail; Ludhiana 2019 - Photography by Ashpreet Khurll

I had been aware of my grandfather's background being from a family of carpenters- 'Tarkhans'. He himself had immigrated to Nairobi from India to get work in this field, before making the final journey to the UK where in later life he entered property development. But standing in this factory and seeing the complete extent of the entire family's involvement in the world of design and interiors, I felt a moment of pride. It seemed incredible that without realising, there was something in my DNA that had led me to into this industry and this part of me was the result of something deeper; a connection which had intrinsically existed and stemmed back to my heritage.

Captured in the bustle of peak Punjab traffic - Photography by Ashpreet Khurll

As a second generation British Indian, sometimes navigating between East and West feels confusing. This trip and the experiences I have had after have shown me how two worlds can collide so beautifully, and it is why I feel so strongly about the link between Travel and Interiors. Just as the artisans working alongside machines; the mixing of two mediums; I realised the two mediums for me is my heritage (India) with my reality (UK). By drawing inspiration from both places in the design field and on a personal level it confirms my theory that design and identity intertwine.

Where this journey is going is ultimately what follows next. I hope to create this online space to direct and inspire myself as well as the reader. The purpose of connecting travel and design together bonds the notion that we understand the spaces we create a lot better when we understand the cultures and people that inhabit these spaces.