interview & text —
WILHELMINA MER
portraits —
MARIE OUARDIYA
photograpy & work, courtesty of the artist
— mexico city, may 2025
PANDORA GRAESSL — I believe it's something that we all have in us. You just feel it when you have to do something—at some point in my fashion career, I couldn't see the point anymore, I felt I had done everything I could, the craziest, the coolest, it couldn’t go any better and it was time for the next chapter of my life. It was visceral. I was living in LA, working with the best brands and magazines. I had an amazing house, everything was seemingly perfect and written—but I realized, 'This is not me anymore.'
Becoming an artist came at its own timing. Even in fashion I was always very hands on and very involved in the creative process. If it wasn’t creative, I wasn't having fun. I still have a root in fashion but back then I needed a radical shift. My art career has developed alongside my personal growth. One day I woke up and had to change it all. I needed a higher purpose — it was about diving deep inside the universe within me.
PG — Funnily enough, it all started with me wanting to start a swimwear brand. The world I created it and the story I wanted to tell. I eventually made a film of it called "Initiated Dialogue." It's very apocalyptic and utopian at the same time. It was about some fabulous creatures coming from another galaxy, landing on Earth, getting in touch with all the elements and nature, going crazy over the water. I realized that was actually my story. That was my research, and it was me. I was that stranger on this planet I call Paradise.
WM — Wow — that’s really beautiul. Where does this reverence for nature come from?
PG — I grew up in the Swiss mountains, between lake and forest, and that constant connection to nature shaped the way I see and feel the world. I believe the way I was raised gave me a deep sense of reverence for silent beauty, observing the power of nature, and feeling. the unseen. I’ve always been fascinated by transformation—how art, rituals, or even a simple moment in nature can shift something inside of us.
WM — Your first art project, the Re Project was about reconnecting with nature. What answers are to be found in this connection?
PG — I think when you start diving in, the answers are just infinite, and that was very much the idea of the Re Project. It was about this reset: realize, remember, reconnect, reunite, returning back to our roots and the essence of things. I went really deep on this project—I created a lexicon of 186 words related to how to reboot the world. It was to suggest a kind of a new world Order with words like revelation, remedy, and resolutions.
WM — Is the heightened sensuality in your work about reestablishing our sensual connection with nature to remedy our disconnect?
PG — Probably. It’s just how I see things, my reality. People do tell me it's very sensual, but if you really pay attention, you can find sensuality in so many little details of the everyday around you; in the wind blowing the trees, how the leaves move, how the grass and flowers bend and move from side to side. In the morning dew. How the water gets foamy when it crashes into the rocks on the shore, how fire consumes wood, and so on. Mankind separates itself so much from nature, but we're part of nature and cities are built in nature, afterall. We are at the heart of it, constantly.
PG — Flowers are the purest expression of beauty. I've always been mesmerized by their personalities. Also kind of fun that they are the genitals of plants and part of an amazing ecosystem of bees, honey, fruit, and vegetables. Without them, we wouldn’t have food. They are the expression of life itself through their ephemeral and powerful beauty.
WM — What inspires you to take such detailed and intimate portraits of natural forms?
PG — To me, these natural forms are all characters: a dead tree or a mountain, you can feel their spirit communicating with you, their presence watching over you or at you. I have this other scanography series of flowers. It's all about their movement, their anatomy, their texture. It’s also very sensual and holy. They all have such singularity, like creatures or deities.
I have a side that also really likes sci-fi and electronic, man-made things. But to me, the most beautiful is the organic and raw. We can't really reject our technological development and evolution, but I think if we want to keep this planet, we need to come back not only to nature but to ourselves. I believe what the planet suffers from most is maybe not climate change, but human thoughts: how negative thoughts are, how disconnected people are from the essence of life, from each other, but primarily from themselves.
WM — Is this where the aspects of ritual and communion in your installations come from?
PG — Probably. I want to create sacred, intentional spaces where we celebrate the unseen forces that are part of this reality. I want to invoke different dimensions that are very, very present: ancestors, spirits, and channel energies. People are so attached to the material, what they can see, and feel, but the unseen world is way bigger than the material one.
I build most of my shows into temples. My first solo show was in a chapel in Arles. My last show was in this abandoned building, but was conceptualized as an initiatory journey. Between the soundtrack, the scents, and all the candles, the mood felt very devotional.
In these spaces, there is the remembrance that we are not alone: we've been here before, we'll come back again. And that goes for everything; all is cyclical, everything is in movement. I love to create these portals because I feel like the air in the atmosphere changes and becomes thicker. I also love to involve the audience—I can sense how much people are needing to be involved and engaged.
PG — Altars have been something very important for me. I believe a lot of people feel unseen, unheard, and also maybe lost on the religious or spiritual part. When I do altars, people often ask, “I'm not religious—can I pray?” I say of course—it doesn't matter what you believe in—somebody, something hears you. There's the collective consciousness, or whatever people want to call it: the universe, the sky, the, source, God? And this sacredness is in all of us: to know you're sacred, that I'm sacred, this very moment is sacred, this tree is sacred. It's to bring this beauty and this empowerment back and remind people that they matter. This life is pretty crazy and my work celebrates this very spark.
PG — The first time I did an altarpiece was in this chapel in Arles. The response was completely crazy. I had people coming, crying, sleeping, praying, kneeling. People left offerings—they would take off their earrings, some would come back with flowers. A friend even left a g-string in another work. There are house keys, jewelry, and the altar kept growing. It was so beautiful by the end of the show. The air was so thick. It was insane, it was a total energetic experiment.
I love participative work because I feel when you involve people it always goes much further than you think it would. I also see in general how much people love to participate because as you just said, in a gallery you're just there, you look, you judge, you like, you don't like, and that's it. Participating and knowing that your energy is required makes people feel wanted and seen, and that is so important to me.
WM — I love how you’ve envisioned the altar as artwork that invites, is made from, and then crystallizes this energy.
PG — Thank you! When I do altars they mutate into portals, with people lighting candles, leaving objects, the wax melting and crystallizing the elements. Then reality starts to bend. I melt everything together; it feels like a gateway or a ouija board. It's very ritualistic. It became this communal dream. I have a few people that wrote to me saying that what they have asked on the altar came true. Altars are powerful.
PG — My mom is Vietnamese. She's sort of Buddhist, my dad believes in creation. I didn't come from a very religious background, but from a belief system that acknowledges that there is a higher force that eventually listens and interacts with us. In my travels I’ve encountered a lot of altars, and am most attracted to those in Thailand, India and in Mexico. We didn't really have one at home. Rituals with my dad would be forest walks, making a fire, hiking mountains, waterfall hunting, Nature, Nature, Nature. My name being Pandora, I grew up with strong imagery from Greek mythology. I love researching ancient religions, all these different gods. So of course when I came to Mexico, I knew right away that this is where I needed to be.
WM — What was it about Mexico that pulled you here?
PG — Mexico has an incredible legacy, you can feel it and you know it's still so present and won’t change. I spent a lot of time at the Anthropology museum, reading everything, completely fascinated by these people. They were highly advanced in astronomy and cosmology, listening to nature and the stars. This is what really resonated with me.
In a Temazcal ceremony, for example, we thank the gods of the north, south, east, and west, the winds and spirits. For me this is normal, paying respect to the powers and consciousness that is higher than us. Even if the wind is invisible, even if man can cultivate the earth, it is so vibrant and bigger than us. Also just the feeling in Mexico’s streets: the abundance, the madness, the kindness of people.. feed me in all ways.
PG — I felt very at peace when I came here. Mexico was more like a coming back home for me. I was very insatiable before. Anytime I had a few days free I would leave for a new city. My energy wasn’t grounded at all, it wasn't matching the energy field of where I was until I came here. And, I felt like my work is everywhere in the street: the color, the light, the Virgin, the mess! I’m so obsessed with this country!
PG —The snake came through a crazy story connected to my work with flowers, actually. It was through an ex-boyfriend. Before we were dating he would come to my house with gifts and things. I didn't want to hear from him in the beginning until he proposed to do a project with me. I'm a very project-driven person, so I accepted. He was like, ‘I love all the flowers you have in your work, I want to shoot my snake with them’ The project was called 'Hidden under the Flower.' I was like, 'Okay, let's do it.'
So he came with his snake, which is the white corn snake that you can see in a lot of my work. I have this flat in Paris, a loft on the ground floor that feels like a cave. It was a bit like my little garden of Eden. As he introduced me to his snake, I became completely hypnotized. In the introduction of my show last year, there was a text on the pamphlet that read: “At the second the snake touched my skin, the world vanished.” It was literally that, I can't really explain what happened. It was surreal for sure.
All the scans I have of the snake came from that day. We were just having fun and doing photos. I started to scan the snake, and came out with this weird alphabet. I never managed to make those types of images ever again. At some point, I have the snake around my neck, and my ex comes next to me, and the snake goes around him and then around me, and this is how we first kissed. It was very prophetic.Then we went into this crazy relationship for a couple of months. It was a meeting of darkness and light and exploring whatever dimension we went in. So yeah, there we were in the Garden of Eden, guided by this white snake, consuming the fruits of one another’s knowledge.
PG — And then I kept the snake for a bit. It was actually my hostage for a second. His name was Versace, and I had the best time with him. I started to research the symbolism of the snake across all the different civilizations, like the Celts, the Egyptians, the Mayans. All around the globe there is always a snake or a snake god at the beginning of the world, either good or bad.
There is the snake in the story of Adam and Eve. Actually, Pandora is the Greek Eve, the first woman. I was following the trail of a snake. The pharmaceutical sign, the DNA, even the the dollar sign is a snake, it was just everywhere and so symbolic. It was interesting because again, it had this feeling that I also had with the Re Project, in that I cracked the matrix.
There's nothing on this planet for me that embodies more duality than a snake. It's like life/death, immortality, fear/fascination, venom/remedy, vice/creativity. My show last year rotated around all of these ideas of this duality incarnated by the snake, as well as the idea of shedding skin, symbolic of our existence.
PG — Yes, Amor Fati—which means the love of fate. This is my philosophy in life in general. Embrace the good and the bad, There are always hidden treasures. ‘Amor Fati, when the fire bit me’ was the full title. Which was also a reference to the snake, how this relationship bit me, and how I played with fire.
WM — So what dream is coming forth next?
PG — Ha, many! I'm constantly dreaming and envisioning. That's how I live life and function. I feel like my everyday life is like a dream coming to reality, as cheesy as this may sound. It’s relentless work, but it works - just gotta keep dreaming! More concretely I’m working on a few shows and projects. Travels and ideas. But I think my next big dream is the next evolution of me!