tena

Tena is from Croatia. After finishing Bachelor in Zagreb, searching for something new and searching for herself, she went to sunny LA. When a year passed, she realized that she felt more at home in Europe. The time abroad made her aware of what she actually wanted back then and so the journey led her to Basel, Switzerland. Here she encountered an entirely new culture from her previous experiences and found new interests that became reasons to stay.

Today, Tena is working on a PhD in practice-based aesthetic research and is an assistant at the Digital Fabrication Lab at the HGK. Tena’s research explores how to provide new experiences with the integration of visual and tactile perception. The objects she creates are designed to evoke emotions – and the emotions that people experience when handling them are often very unexpected and wildly individual. Half of the week she is writing her PhD and reading philosophy, while the other half she is working hands on in the shop.

I’ve heard from other students that Tena really engages them when they come looking for help in the Fabrication Lab and is very generous with her time and creativity. Tena struck me as someone who is refreshingly honest, wildly intelligent, and direct. She told me I look like a Chad and I appreciated hearing so unapologetically how someone might perceive me at first.  She would not give advice to a younger Tena because this version of herself was not ready to understand it.

[44] June 25, 2021