Vikram Goyal’s The Soul Garden at Design Miami/ Paris 2025

Visitors to this year’s Design Miami/Paris will discover a sensory world of sight, scent, and story at The Soul Garden, an immersive installation by Vikram Goyal Studio, created in collaboration with the world’s leading smell researcher and artist artist Sissel Tolaas and presented by The Future Perfect.

Set within the historic gardens of L’Hôtel de Maisons, once the Parisian home of Karl Lagerfeld, this evocative installation reimagines India’s ancient animal fables as a contemporary dialogue between art, design, and ecology.

The Soul Garden invites viewers to take on the role of “caretakers” through a symbolic act. Each receives a talisman, acknowledging the shared responsibility of guardianship and continuity between myth and the living world. The garden becomes a space of contemplation and stewardship, one where fables are not just read but lived. Adding a layer of performance, daily readings of the Panchatantra fables will be held at 5 PM from October 22 to 25, performed by actors from Cours Florent, France’s esteemed performing arts school. These live readings weave spoken word with scent and sculpture, transforming the experience into an evolving ritual of reflection.

Together, these animals become not static objects, but presences, guardians of stories and virtues, each holding space for reflection and reverence. Each limited-edition sculpture emerges from an exacting process: wooden maquettes evolve into sheet metal, refined through the studio’s signature art of Hollowed Joinery. Patinated surfaces suggest the passage of time, bridging ancient tradition with contemporary form. Hidden within are repoussé panels that unfold miniature Panchatantra fables, offering intimate glimpses of moral lessons to those who look closely. The pieces are scaled to inhabit interiors gracefully, as consoles, benches, coffee tables, or stools yet holding the quiet gravitas of monumental sculpture.

Scaled with care to inhabit interiors gracefully, the animals stand as manifestations of character and narrative — appearing as sculptural consoles, seating, or tables. The collection is rooted in the lineage of Indian sculptural tradition, enriched by the studio’s signature use of repoussé and metalwork. At the same time, it nods to the great animaliers of the early twentieth century —François-Xavier Lalanne, Rembrandt Bugatti, Ferdinand Parpan — creating a dialogue between traditions across time and place.

As Goyal explains, “Each animal is more than sculpture; it is a keeper of wisdom, a vessel of memory, and a guide into the deeper currents of human imagination.”

The installation’s multi-sensory depth is heightened through a unique collaboration with Berlin-based artist Sissel Tolaas, who transforms scent into a medium of emotion and communication. For each sculpture, Tolaas captured molecules present during its material creation, alongside scents drawing from the animals themselves, their habitats, and their interactions with humans. Using a combination of nanotechnological and analogue diffusion devices, these scents permeate the surrounding garden, layering from one sculpture to the next — mirroring the invisible bonds shared through air across species. The result enables the recreation of complex odors but also reveals hidden layers of presence, character, and environment that would otherwise remain invisible.