Soft Geometry
Soft-geometry was founded by Utharaa Zacharias & Palaash Chaudhary. Zacharias and Chaudhary are Indian designers based in San Francisco, with a focus on collectible furniture, lighting and objects. Their collaborative studio practice is centered around softness and hand-making, inspired by the craft traditions and object culture of their hometowns in India. Zacharias and Chaudhary moved to the United States to pursue their Masters in Furniture and Industrial design respectively from Savannah College of Art & Design and started their studio, soft-geometry, in 2018.
In 2022 Chaudhary was named in Forbes India’s 30 under 30 special mentions list and in 2021, Zacharias was one of the youngest to be included in Phaidon’s ‘Woman Made’ book by Jain Hall, a catalog of 200 most influential women designers from the early twentieth century to present day. In 2020 Zacharias & Chaudhary were named in Sight Unseen’s American Design Hot List, an award for the twenty most influential design studios in North America.
www.soft-geometry.com / Instagram @soft.geometry
Portrait: Alanna Hale
Mirrors for Aliens, 2023
We were born & raised in India and now work in the USA on visas. India is our home and America has been our platform. Our identity is one of impermanence, the highs of our creative endeavors juxtaposed against reminders of our outsider status - not American, not Indian-american, not even permanent residents. USCIS* calls us Non-Resident Aliens. These reflections on transient identity serve as the foundation for our latest work, Mirrors for Aliens, a composition of steel thalis polished to a mirror-like finish, to form reflective surfaces. The steel thali is ubiquitous in Indian households and restaurants, an unbreakable plate for all meals that embodies practicality, frugality, strength, and endurance. In Mirrors for Aliens, the thali acts as an iconic marker of our Indian-ness, humble yet aspirational, and of our Indian futures - simultaneously shiny and faint. The mirrored steel offers slightly distorted, soft reflections that speak to our blurred sense of identity and the complex emotional landscape that comes with living between cultures, countries, home and work.
*U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services