HOME SERIES x CASSI NAMODA

Home is a word with many meanings — a place to rest and renew, to gather and grow, connect and commune. It means different things to different people at different times, making it a constant source of fascination and inspiration. 

Through this series, we explore the meaning of home through the eyes and words of creative people who move, intrigue, and energise us.

Cassi Namoda is settling into a new stage of life. As a mother and artist raising her daughter Arafah Gaza with husband Yousef, home is a welcoming living and studio space in Biella, a small Italian town in the foothills of the Alps that has become a profound and restful sanctuary. A home offering a simplified, slower pace, and the time to relish and raise Arafah: something the artist has wholeheartedly leaned into. 

Born in Maputo, Mozambique, Namoda’s nomadic upbringing between continents and cultures has long informed her work and life; lending her canvas an inherent curiosity and energy that draws upon her familial home and heritage.

Her nuanced, figurative paintings are symbolic and ethereal, grounded and referential, everyday and surreal. Infused with the duality between past and present – and now the lifeforce of motherhood – Cassi’s distinctive paintings are a world of colour, vibrant and earthly, documenting diasporic life across time and space. 

Much like her home and studio, the artist’s paintings interweave the personal and historical, often influenced by objects and textiles from her travels. In this conversation, Cassi shares how motherhood has shaped new perspectives and enriched her understanding of the word home.

Can you tell me about the place you call home?

I’m now based in Biella, Italy, a place I’ve grown to enjoy mainly because there are few distractions here. Biella is between Milano and Torino, and three hours from the south of France.  I quite enjoy this drive down the Ligurian coastline - my practice has always been centered around solitude and nature. I'm a painter and I spend hours in the studio but also nature and different landscapes are very much integral to my work. 

I live in the historic part of town in the oldest structure which has had many lives, originally first a convent. The only way to get to town on the hill is via the municipality elevator.  My daughter Arafah is almost 12 months old and was born here in Biella - it’s where I have currently decided to raise her. Currently Arafah's favourite thing to do is go to the park and walk around as moving vertically is a new way she likes to engage with the world. Besides that, she loves to be in my studio.

It’s really uncomplicated at this point- it’s Arafah’s world , paintings I’ve collected over time via auctions and some personal works from rugs to blankets too.

Where do you turn to find inspiration?  

Right now, it’s my daughter Arafah and maybe, most likely, it’ll remain this way.

"Home to me is a blanket - a place of rest and respite."

How does painting and your creative process inspire your home, and how in turn does home inspire you creatively?  

I think it’s unspoken. It's more about being attuned with everyday life - the colours that surround me whilst I paint or while I’m picking out flowers or fruit to eat / or what Arafah is wearing that day. It’s all lived poetry. 

Some objects hold the weight of memory, softened by time and shaped by the hands that have held it. Do you have a piece in your home that springs to mind, and would you share the story behind it?

I don’t really have heirlooms but I am currently making heirlooms for my daughter. I started these lampshades that I’m having a friend design- it’s inspired by two favourite seasons - Spring and Autumn - Arafah’s birthday is in the spring and mine is autumn.

Do you have any daily home rituals? 

It’s not like how it might have once been as  currently my life is pleasantly absorbed by my daughter - so if any ritual exists it’s opening all the windows in the morning- and reading books with my daughter first thing before we go to the dining room for breakfast.

What has having Arafah taught you that you now carry with you into your home and creative life? 

She has taught me just to be more present in the beauty of laughing and smiling and singing all the good stuff from when we were kids, my inner youth radiates because of her.

What is Arafah's favourite thing to do/place/item in your home and why?

She loved to spend time by the dining room balcony door. She likes the outside world, the trees, the birds, the flowers - nature's forms.

What does home mean to you?

Home to me is a blanket - a place of rest and respite.

Thank you to Cassi for opening up her home to us. The blankets featured in this edition of Home Series is Norlha's Felt Chequered Bed Cover and Norlha Handspun Baby Blanket in Yellow. Arafah is wearing Children's Boiled Tibetan Jacket in Natural Yak White. Photography by Chiara Lombardi.