New Delhi-based designer Vikram Goyal is set to make his debut at Design Miami/Paris 2025 with The Soul Garden, an ambitious multi-sensory installation that reimagines ancient Indian animal fables for contemporary audiences. Presented in collaboration with The Future Perfect gallery, the exhibition runs from October 21–26, 2025, at the historic L’Hôtel de Maisons.
A Living Fable in Metal and Scent
The Soul Garden represents a groundbreaking fusion of sculptural artistry and olfactory science. Working alongside Berlin-based smell artist Sissel Tolaas, Goyal has created an immersive environment where monumental animal sculptures interact with carefully designed scent experiences, transforming the elegant Parisian gardens into what he describes as “a living fable for our time.”
The installation features five sculptural animal forms, each crafted using Goyal’s signature repoussé and hollowed joinery metalwork techniques:
- Gaja & Karabha (The Elephant & Baby Elephant) – representing wisdom, memory, and communication
- Kurma (The Tortoise) – embodying endurance, patience, and cosmic time
- Vyaghra (The Tiger) – symbolizing power, stealth, and protection
- Nakra (The Crocodile) – expressing strength, adaptability, and primal force
Each sculpture contains a hidden compartment revealing a Panchatantra fable rendered in repoussé, inspired by ancient Indian miniature paintings.
The exhibition’s most innovative element is its integration of olfactory storytelling. Tolaas visited Goyal’s New Delhi studio to capture smell molecules during the metalworking process and recorded scent signatures from real animals in their natural habitats. These molecules are diffused through nano-scent activators embedded throughout the landscape, sculptures, and specially selected Indian grasses.
“For animals, smell is their primary language,” Goyal explains. “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.”
Tolaas adds: “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.”
Honoring Indian Heritage and Global Craft Traditions
The project draws deep inspiration from the Panchatantra, a collection of moral animal fables written in Sanskrit over 2,000 years ago—widely considered the inspiration behind Aesop’s tales. Goyal describes these as “stories where animals are not just characters, but raconteurs of timeless human truths.”
The sculptural works also pay homage to early 20th-century animalier sculptors including François-Xavier Lalanne, Rembrandt Bugatti, and Ferdinand Parpan, while remaining rooted in ancient Indian sculptural traditions.
Interactive Experience and Cultural Programming
Visitors are invited to pause among the sculptures, sitting on crafted stools to reflect and absorb the multi-sensory environment. Each guest will receive a talisman, symbolically inviting them to become caretakers of the animals and acknowledging humanity’s role in guardianship and environmental responsibility.
Daily at 5 PM, actors from Cours Florent, France’s renowned performing arts training school, will perform fable readings, adding layers of storytelling and cultural dialogue to the experience.
Exhibition Details
The Soul Garden by Vikram Goyal
Dates: October 21–26, 2025
Preview Days: October 20–21, 2025
Location: L’Hôtel de Maisons, Rue de l’Université, Paris, France
Presented by: The Future Perfect
Fair: Design Miami/Paris 2025
About the Key Contributors
Vikram Goyal is a New Delhi-based designer whose studio practice reinterprets Indian craft traditions, particularly metalwork, for global contemporary audiences. A Princeton-trained engineer and development economist, Goyal transitioned to design after co-founding Ayurvedic brand Kama Ayurveda in 2002. He became the first Indian design studio to be represented by some of the world’s most eminent galleries and recently collaborated with The Elephant Family on The Great Elephant Migration. Goyal will also return to PAD London this year with a solo show represented by Nilufar Gallery.
Sissel Tolaas is a Berlin-based pioneer in olfactory art with academic training in chemistry, art, and linguistics. She founded the Smell Research Lab in 2004 with backing from International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), positioning scent as a powerful vehicle for memory, environment, and socio-political commentary.
The Future Perfect is one of the world’s foremost contemporary design galleries, founded by David Alhadeff in 2003. With locations in Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami, the gallery has introduced highly collectible works by seminal design talents and continues to forge new pathways for artists and collectors.
Design Miami/Paris is the European edition of the world-renowned collectible design fair, launched in 2022 in partnership with Art Basel. The fair deepens dialogue between art, design, and fashion within the cultural fabric of the French capital.
Cours Florent, founded in 1967, is France’s largest multidisciplinary professional performing arts training school, with celebrated alumni including Isabelle Adjani, Christopher Lambert, Audrey Tautou, and Diane Kruger.
A New Chapter in Global Design
The Soul Garden marks a significant milestone in Goyal’s international trajectory, following his participation at PAD London and Design Miami. Through this ambitious project, he aims to reinterpret Indian animal fables “not as relics of the past but as blueprints for future thinking—about empathy, ecology, and coexistence.”
All images Courtesy of Ali Monis naqvi
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