The Soul Garden by Vikram Goyal

"Visitors to this year’s Design Miami/Paris will discover a sensory oasis of visual, olfactory and spiritual wonders at The Soul Garden – a transformative installation created by New Delhi-based designer Vikram Goyal in collaboration with artist Sissel Tolaas and presented by The Future Perfect. This immersive project will be showcased from 21st – 26th October 2025 in the elegant gardens of L’Hôtel de Maisons, once the Parisian home of Karl Lagerfeld and currently the setting for Design Miami/Paris, the European edition of this world-renowned collectible design fair.

The Soul Garden offers new fables for our turbulent times. Landscaped by Goyal in partnership with Tolaas, this verdant sanctuary spotlights a gathering of five animal forms, created using the designer's signature hollowed joinery and repoussé techniques, alongside seating and grass embedded with nano-scent activators.

Each sculpted beast holds ancient philosophical significance and together they honour the rich, poetic belief in India towards animals. 'In India, animals are more than instinct, they are sacred, sentient, divine. Many embody essential virtues – strength, wisdom, loyalty, tranquillity. This recognition of their spiritual equivalence has led to their protection and veneration for centuries' says Goyal.

The Soul Garden also celebrates the Panchatantra, an Indian collection of moral animal fables written in Sanskrit more than 2,000 years ago (and the likely inspiration behind Aesop’s tales). Goyal calls the Panchatantra 'stories where animals are not just characters, but raconteurs of timeless human truths. They’ve been our philosophers, our storytellers, our moral compass, disguised in fur, feathers, and scales.' Like the Panchatantra, his animals carry inner truths, each housing a compartment that reveals a Panchatantra fable in repoussé inspired by ancient miniature paintings.

Collectors wandering through The Soul Garden will encounter these 'sacred, sentient and divine creatures', each representing universal qualities, such as Gaja, the elephant who represents wisdom, memory and communication, and Vyaghra, the tiger who embodies power, stealth and protection. These symbolic animals pay homage to a fresh tradition of sculpture inspired by ancient Indian sculptures in synergy with early 20th-century animalier sculptors such as François-Xavier Lalanne, Rembrandt Bugatti and Ferdinand Parpan. These are not mere objects, but presences. The animals stand as embodiments of personality and narrative, their forms scaled with care to inhabit interiors gracefully-as console, bench, coffee table, or stool-yet holding its own with quiet authority.

Scent, with its intimate ties to emotion and memory, is the essential, primal element that brings The Soul Garden to life. 'For animals, smell is their primary language; it’s how they find food, recognise kin, warn of danger and even express emotion,' says Goyal. 'Scent is a story, and in order to be true to the intelligence of animals, The Soul Garden needed to speak in this invisible but powerful register. That’s why I turned to Sissel Tolaas.' The Berlin-based artist, who believes smell is information and information is communication, works with smell molecules, which she calls 'the alphabet of the air, a shared endeavour'.

For this project, Tolaas visited Goyal’s New Delhi studio, capturing smell molecules during various stages of the creative metalworking process. In addition, she recorded molecules around genuine animals in their habitats, analysing, replicating and reproducing them to form a core smell for each animal sculpture. In The Soul Garden, these subtle, molecule-based olfactory triggers will be diffused from nano-scent activators and analogue devices, embedded in the setting, sculptures and grasses, which Tolaas selected from India for the project. Layers of scent will overlap, embodying 'how shared air weaves connections across species, dissolving boundaries and creating a communal atmosphere of interrelation', says Tolaas, adding: 'To engage with The Soul Garden through smell is to unlock an encounter infused with emotion, play and vulnerability. And without an emotional reaction, there can be no action.'

Visitors to The Soul Garden will be encouraged to pause and sit on crafted stools among the animals, to reflect, read and enjoy this multi-sensory experience. As a participatory gesture, talismans will be handed out, inviting visitors to become caretakers or custodians of the animals, both as myth and being, acknowledging the need for guardianship, responsibility and continued connection. At 5pm every evening, fable readings will offer further layers of storytelling and cultural dialogue. These readings will be performed by actors from Cours Florent, the renowned French multidisciplinary professional performing arts training school.

Goyal’s hope is that The Soul Garden will become an important new fable for our time. 'It reinterprets Indian animal fables not as relics of the past but as blueprints for future thinking – about empathy, ecology, and coexistence. By entering this living fable, each visitor leaves not only with a story, but a renewed role in the wider web of life.'

About Vikram Goyal
Vikram Goyal is a New Delhi-based designer whose multidisciplinary studio practice is rooted in the reinterpretation of Indian craft traditions, particularly metalwork, for a global contemporary audience. His work reflects a profound dialogue between heritage and modernity — drawing from India’s visual legacies and personal narratives shaped by his upbringing and education. A Princeton-trained engineer and development economist, Goyal transitioned from a successful finance career to design after co-founding the Ayurvedic brand Kama Ayurveda in 2002. His return to India catalyzed a journey that would merge cultural preservation with aesthetic reinvention.

About Sissel Tolaas
Based in Berlin, Sissel Tolaas is a pioneer in the field of olfa ctory art, transforming scent into a conceptual and experiential medium. With academic training in chemistry, art and linguistics, Tolaas’s transdisciplinary approach unites science and sensory storytelling. She founded the Smell Research Lab in 2004 with backing from International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), positioning scent not as mere perfume, but as a powerful vehicle for memory, environment and socio-political commentary.

About Design Miami/Paris
Design Miami/Paris is the European edition of the world-renowned collectible design fair, recognised for curating and showcasing the most influential and innovative contemporary and historic design practices. Rooted in the legacy of its sister events in Basel and Miami Beach, the Paris edition deepens the dialogue between art, design and fashion by embedding itself into the cultural fabric of the French capital. Launched in 2022 in partnership with Art Basel, the Paris edition of Design Miami/ aligns with Paris+ par Art Basel, making the city a vibrant epicentre for art and design each October. It brings together leading global galleries, emerging designers, design institutions, and collectors, while promoting a cross-cultural exchange of ideas, material explorations, and experimental craft. In 2025, the fair continues to spotlight interdisciplinary practices and contextual storytelling, bridging heritage with cutting-edge innovation."

Date 22-10-2025