You are very much involved with veganism and respect of animals. As you have seen in these days of almost global lockdown, a lot of animals got back to city-centers as humans are not around, the pollution (at least in Milan, where I live but also the skys of China) is much less and strong then before and so on and so on. All this means a lot for all of us. What is your take on that?

As we are forced to slow down, we are more aware of the bare essential needs to sustain our life. It is a surreal moment for all on this planet — humans, animals, and the natural world as a whole. The restriction of our movement reversed the animal/human positions, while we are caged, they explore the world like never before; Elephants get drunk in China, herds of sika deer in the streets of Japan, lions take a rest on the roads of South Africa, all are romantic scenes for animal lovers with a strong aroma of karma in it. As these animals reclaim the streets and fill the void we left, we shall not forget that there are more farmed birds and mammals than those in the wild. Due to the filthy and crowded conditions that they live in on factory farms, it feels like the coronavirus pandemic is just the beginning and there is more to come.

For centuries humanity's main problems were epidemics and hunger. It's feasible that originally, we've acquired most of our infectious parasitism from wild animals, and nowadays from domesticated ones. The animal farming industry helps to spread influenza viruses, it's unquestionable; The swine flu came from pigs, bird flu H5N1 typically caught from chickens, and other zoonotic diseases like SARS, Ebola, Nipah, Hendra, EMC/2012, Marburg and more are transmitted from animals to people. The animals we grow for meat, milk, eggs or even exotic lather become carriers and spreaders of diseases, while both populations keep growing in great numbers, the friction and closeness between them become greater, this results in a great potential that each virus might grow into the next human pandemic.

The human compliance relies on the political and technological breakthroughs that have enabled us to manage hunger and limit epidemics in the 20th century. However, within the great diversity and abundance of the globalized world, we start experiencing infectious pathogen outbreaks more often, they are spreading faster and further than before, and if the 20th century was the century of genocide, the 21st century is emerging to become the era of plagues. I believe that the answer is simple, in the battle against the next pandemics humanity shouldn't search only for new vaccines or drugs, we should dig dipper and find sterility and mental hygienic that will wash away our cruel practices that enabled the abundance we experience. We need less products and more morals. We should lust a solution that grows from our higher consciousness to allow a balanced and ethical-oriented approach to life.

What does your creative world look like today? 

These days, I mostly practice my research and design from home. I read and write for my dissertation that examines design processes and the feasibility of accomplishing a pure vegan design. This is a great time for conducting this research as it feels that the vegan lifestyle is more important now than ever before. Design-wise, I take enough space between projects to deepen the theory, refine the concept, and experiment with the materials I have chosen. It has been two years since I embarked on a new project, and during the quarantine, I'm finalizing a major one I've been working on for the past couple of years.

Besides working at home, most of my objects are still "manufactured" outside, as they grow in nature in isolated areas. I can find myself spending a few days on the lowest point on earth — in the Dead Sea, looking for objects I submerged during the beginning of the winter to be crystallized underwater. From there, I continue to the desert for a few days of weaving textiles, instead of using the traditional yarns to this region that are made from sheep wool, I am working with plant-based materials. Isolation is no stranger to me, nor is the connection to nature.

What is the most influential aspect to your current studio practice?

Ethics in design, trying to construct a set of principals within I design and produce clean design and guilt-free objects. Just as our medical ethics were established after World War II, I feel like there is a great need for philosophical construction related to moral principles in our field. This approach for design started to grow on me seven years ago when I became vegan during my MA studies at Design Academy Eindhoven. At first, I questioned my diet, then my clothing, and later I started questioning my profession. I looked at my designs and came to realize that even the wooden chair I have in my studio is most likely not vegan, as the sanding paper that I used to make it smooth is not vegan, nor the glue or varnish. The range of materials that contain animal ingredients extends far beyond the commonly known animal products, like leather, suede, or wool. Animal ingredients such as gelatin binder, bone glue, collagen, stearic acid, among others, are blended into materials and products that we fail to recognize and relate to in the standard industry practices where animals are turned into meat and leather. Since my work is material based, I need to clarify the origins and the ingredients of the materials I use.

As your work is so much related to nature, where do you source your materials in these days and which is your next project?

After our show in Milan's design week (2018), I came back with a strong sense that I should proceed my research by growing my own materials. When I reached back home, I started planting seeds of luffa on the rooftop of my studio. Since then the project has developed and grown into a beautiful closed-cycle of self-growing and production. Today I'm designing a collection of planters made with luffas that I sprouted myself. As designers we double, even triple the amount of our solid waste. Collecting and using the remnants and byproducts of my consumption during the design process led to a great material supply. I am now harvesting for the third time the crop from my "fields".  Thinking holistically on the design process, I wanted to add to my principles book material recycling, consumption reduction, organic growing, and waste policies that will ultimately begin to heal my environment.

What is the reason/passion that gets you to keep on making your works?

I think my design is quite biographical and personal, as well as the materials I use. I grew up in my parents' plant nursery, so natural materials were always around me in large quantities. I feel I design mostly with reference to my experiences as a child surrounded by "nature" — I use soil and clay which relates to the greenhouse; salt which is sourced from my favourite place on earth — the Dead Sea. I grow plants for my designs and harvest their fruits, and I mix and match colours, compositions and narratives that are interwoven in my daily life just like the notion of vegan design. Today, there is a sort of responsibility that I feel towards the animals that are out there suffering our great abuse. The more I read, the deeper their sorrow carves into my being as I understand how smart and conscious they are; Animals have brains and they use them as we do -  to experience the world, to think and feel, to solve problems and ensure their survival. Their emotional range is also larger than first thought. Like us, animals have a mental life, a personality, moods; they laugh and play, experience simple emotions such as sadness and happiness to more complex ones like jealousy, grief and empathy; they are self-conscious and are aware of their actions and intentions. I won't use any non-vegan materials, but to bring a real change, I know I need to influence other designers to join the revolution and rely on ethical practices. With our choice of materials, we determine destinies without even acknowledging that, educating others and seeing them changing their practices brings a great satisfaction and sense of accomplishment that keeps me going. 

How has your work changed over the last few years, in case it did?

Apart from the materials and tools that I use, the main thing that has changed is the number of objects I produce. This is actually the result of the restrictions I am working with —  an ethical-based design and holistic approach. The understanding that everything and everyone is interconnected brought me to think and work with a unifying mentality that embraces all animate and inanimate forms. To be loyal to my principles and honest to the process, I had to ultimately reduce the number of objects I produce and keep working on more conceptual work.

How would you envision your work tomorrow and on a larger scale how would you dream the work of tomorrow?

My dream work will be to widen the scale to the level of urban planning. Just like new cities that were established from scratch in the 20th century, such as Chandigarh in India by Le Corbusier or Brasilia by Oscar Niemeyer, it's about time that we start constructing conscious cities in which animals and nature are placed in the centre alongside humans — a new model of nourishing culture and coexistence. We need to push towards these ideals that correspond with a real progressive, conscious, and civilized society, one that uses clean design and live within clean architecture. With our climate changing, it’s not a matter of our evolution anymore, it is a survival mode.

about erez nevi pana

Erez Nevi Pana, born in 1983, is an explorer who uses design as a significant tool to investigate phenomena through material experimentation. Nevi Pana earned his BA in design from the Holon Institute of Technology and an MA from the Design Academy Eindhoven where his thesis focused on the recrystallization of salt. In 2015, Nevi Pana formed La Terrasse in Eindhoven as a platform for designers, artists, writers and thinkers to work closely together, share their thoughts on a central theme and realize their visions. The Design Museum Holon recently acquired two of Nevi Pana’s works developed from an organic material mixture of soil and fungi for their permanent collection, in addition to three salt pieces from his solo exhibition at the museum. Nevi Pana's studio practice focuses on research and design investigating the topic of vegan design.