Casa Figuera

 

Hi Alena, how are you? Could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?

I'm very well, thank you. My name is Alena and I'm the founder of Casa Figuera, a sensory studio based in Mallorca. My work lives at the intersection of wellbeing, creativity and nature. The name casa is a metaphor, a house with many rooms. A home for different projects that are all deeply connected. I guide yoga, pilates and sound meditation. I create naturally dyed silk art and host workshops and retreats that invite people to slow down and reconnect with themselves. I also create handmade objects; naturally dyed silk scarves, meditation cushions, lavender eye pillows. Everything begins with the same intention: to help people experience beauty not as something to consume, but as something to feel.

You have a Master's in Textile Engineering, but Casa Figuera is about something so much wider; yoga, sound, natural dyeing, presence. That's a complete shift. How did you move from engineering to this?

I spent many years working in the fashion industry studying textiles from a technical perspective. I was fascinated by fibres and materials. But my journey has always been shaped by travel. It really began during an internship in China in 2013. I was in a colour department of a textile company, and because of the language barrier, I spent countless hours experimenting with colour almost entirely alone. It was a quiet, creative time that taught me the joy of play. A few years later, I moved to Indonesia for my semester abroad, where I wrote my thesis on indigo and batik. I became fascinated by the relationship between craft, culture and nature. I've returned many times since. And that's also where yoga found me. The same woman, Made, who introduced me to local batik workshops also brought me to my first yoga class. Looking back, it feels beautifully symbolic.

So both the textile work and the yoga practice, they led you to the same place?

Yes. Over the years I realised that both are practices of listening. They ask us to slow down, observe and trust what unfolds rather than forcing an outcome. Casa Figuera became the place where these worlds met. My background in textiles, my love for nature and my path through yoga suddenly made sense as one interconnected story.

 

 

You describe Casa Figuera as "a sanctuary to pause, become present, reconnect." What does sanctuary actually mean to you?

For me, sanctuary isn't a physical place. It's a feeling. It's the moment when your nervous system softens, your breath deepens and you remember that you don't have to constantly perform or achieve. We live in a world that celebrates productivity, yet I believe we're deeply longing for spaces where simply being is enough. Casa Figuera grew from that longing. I wanted to create experiences where people reconnect with their senses, with the feeling of silk between their hands, the scent of eucalyptus, the warmth of tea, the vibration of sound and the quiet rhythm of their own breath. Sometimes healing doesn't happen through doing more. Sometimes it begins by remembering how to simply be.

And you work with natural dyeing using plants from your garden here in Mallorca. How does working with these specific plants, in this specific place, shape what you create?

The garden has become one of my greatest teachers. I work with eucalyptus, fig leaves, pomegranate skins, sage and many seasonal botanicals that grow around us. Every season offers a different palette, and every plant carries its own personality. What fascinates me is that colour isn't something we impose, it's something we collaborate with. The plants continually teach me playfulness and surrender. They remind me to let go of control and embrace the process rather than holding tightly to how something should turn out. No two silks are ever identical because nature never repeats herself. Rain, sunlight, soil, the season, even the age of a leaf influences the final print. Working this way reminds me that beauty isn't about perfection. It's about relationship. Every textile becomes an imprint of a particular moment, season and place.

That collaboration with nature, it seems central to everything you do. And you bring together things that on the surface seem separate: textiles, yoga, sound. How do those speak to each other?

At first they seem like completely different disciplines. But for me they're all practices of presence. Yoga teaches us to inhabit the body. Sound invites us to listen deeply. Natural dyeing asks us to observe. Textiles invite us to touch. They're simply different languages leading us back to the same place. We experience the world through our senses, yet we rarely slow down enough to truly notice them. That's why I describe Casa Figuera as a sensory studio. My work is about creating experiences where people reconnect through seeing, touching, hearing, smelling and feeling.

You create meditation cushions and eye pillows alongside your silk artworks. That's functional and intimate. How is that different from making art?

I don't really separate art from function. I love creating objects that quietly become part of someone's daily rituals. A meditation cushion may simply support someone while they sit, but it can also become the place where they begin every morning with mindful breaths. A lavender eye pillow becomes part of someone's evening ritual of rest and restoration. There's something incredibly beautiful about creating pieces that are gently woven into everyday life. They're not only admired, they're lived with. To me, that's a very intimate form of art.

When you teach workshops and host retreats, what are you actually trying to offer people?

More than teaching a technique, I hope people leave remembering something about themselves. That they are creative. That they can trust their intuition. That slowing down isn't wasting time. Many people arrive believing they aren't creative enough to naturally dye silk, not flexible enough to practice yoga or have too many thoughts to meditate. Then something quietly shifts. They stop trying to make something perfect and begin responding to what feels true. I hope they leave with a little more softness, curiosity and trust than when they arrived.

There's a deliberate slowness in everything you do. Hand-dyeing, handmade objects, small retreats. How does that pace shape what happens? Slowness isn't an aesthetic choice for me. It's a practice. The plants need time. The colours need time. The silk needs time. People need time. When we slow down, we begin to notice what we usually overlook. We find clarity, presence and a deeper connection with ourselves. That's why the experiences feel different. Nothing is rushed. There is space for conversation, silence, observation and surprise. In a world that constantly asks us to move faster, slowing down becomes a quiet act of resistance.

What's calling to you right now? What are you exploring?

I'm becoming increasingly interested in weaving different modalities together into immersive sensory experiences. I'm fascinated by the relationship between silk and sound, how the softness of naturally dyed silk, infused with the healing qualities of plants, can meet the vibration and frequencies of sound to create an experience that speaks to the whole body.

I'm also expanding into new materials. Alongside silk, I've been working with paper, exploring bookbinding and handcrafted journals. I love the contrast, the fluid softness of silk and the quiet structure of paper. Both invite presence in very different ways. At the same time, I'm dreaming of creating longer natural dyeing immersions. Rather than offering a single workshop, I'd love to invite people to spend several days exploring botanical colour, local plants, textiles and slow craftsmanship more deeply. These are ideas that will naturally ripen during the quieter winter months on the island—a season I love for cocooning, creating and travelling in search of new inspiration.