Tamaro Ja

Tamaro Ja is a vertical light sculpture crowned with handmade palm-paper tiles. Made from palm leaves using a process adapted from traditional Japanese washi, the material filters light like a canopy of leaves, recalling the coolness and shelter an oasis offers in arid land. The diffused light reaches floor and ceiling at once, casting shifting shadows that soften the space.

Designed during a residency in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, the piece uses the palm both as metaphor and as an often-overlooked local resource, giving it a new presence indoors. In Bambara, its name means “the spirit of the palm”, or its shadow: the word ja refers to a person's soul, and to an object's shadow.