Contemporary Cosmology
Gabriela mestriner
Lint, Gelatin, Glycerin and Water
2025
Gabriela mestriner (SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, 1992)
Currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York.
Gabriela’s work moves across disciplines, inhabiting the space between interdisciplinary design practices, architecture, and art — operating in the relational space where material, body, and environment form systems of mutual influence. Her practice unfolds as an inquiry into material, form, and meaning, exploring how processes of research and experimentation can open new ways of perceiving and relating to the world — where physical representation is inseparable from the temporal, social, and ecological forces that shape it.
Gabriela graduated in Architecture and Urban Design in 2016 and co-founded Flipê Arquitetura, a studio recognized for its experimental approach to space and materiality, earning her a Forbes Under 30 Brazil nomination in 2022. In 2024, she founded Mest, an interdisciplinary, research-based Design practice in New York dedicated to exploring how systems of material, cultural, and ecological relations shape lived experience.
Gabriela mestriner
Lint, Gelatin, Glycerin and Water
2025
Gabriela mestriner (SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL, 1992)
Currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York.
Gabriela’s work moves across disciplines, inhabiting the space between interdisciplinary design practices, architecture, and art — operating in the relational space where material, body, and environment form systems of mutual influence. Her practice unfolds as an inquiry into material, form, and meaning, exploring how processes of research and experimentation can open new ways of perceiving and relating to the world — where physical representation is inseparable from the temporal, social, and ecological forces that shape it.
Gabriela graduated in Architecture and Urban Design in 2016 and co-founded Flipê Arquitetura, a studio recognized for its experimental approach to space and materiality, earning her a Forbes Under 30 Brazil nomination in 2022. In 2024, she founded Mest, an interdisciplinary, research-based Design practice in New York dedicated to exploring how systems of material, cultural, and ecological relations shape lived experience.
In many ancestral cosmologies, the boundary between body, dwelling, clothing, and environment is porous. Survival emerges through reciprocal relations between land, community, and the beings that sustain them. Animal fur, shelter, ritual, and daily use form a single continuum—materials understood not as commodities but as extensions of life itself. In contrast, contemporary material culture, especially in the fashion industry, accelerates circulation and disposal. Clothing becomes image and waste, severed from ecological and emotional networks, moving through systems we rarely see.
Lint becomes a site where these worlds touch. Collected from a local laundromat, it gathers fibers, hair, habits, and routines—quiet evidence of coexistence inside shared infrastructures, carrying both domestic intimacy and industrial residue. Gelatin introduces another layer, tied to survival and reciprocity through the remains of animal bodies. When heated, its unmistakable smell resurfaces, then fades as the membrane dries, leaving a surface hovering between presence and loss, returning with an echo of skin.
In Contemporary Cosmologies, lint is bound with a hand-crafted gelatin membrane, joining biological and chemical, residue and craft. Their encounter exposes tensions between reciprocity and extraction, asking what forms of life are remembered or forgotten. The resulting surface resists categorization, holding contradictions that invite a reconsideration of care, presence, and responsibility.
Lint becomes a site where these worlds touch. Collected from a local laundromat, it gathers fibers, hair, habits, and routines—quiet evidence of coexistence inside shared infrastructures, carrying both domestic intimacy and industrial residue. Gelatin introduces another layer, tied to survival and reciprocity through the remains of animal bodies. When heated, its unmistakable smell resurfaces, then fades as the membrane dries, leaving a surface hovering between presence and loss, returning with an echo of skin.
In Contemporary Cosmologies, lint is bound with a hand-crafted gelatin membrane, joining biological and chemical, residue and craft. Their encounter exposes tensions between reciprocity and extraction, asking what forms of life are remembered or forgotten. The resulting surface resists categorization, holding contradictions that invite a reconsideration of care, presence, and responsibility.
