Family
The Creative Love Nest of Radiooooo's Co-founders.
At
Noemi Ferst and Benjamin Moreau, Gigi 4 years old
To visit the home of Noemi Ferst, Benjamin Moreau and their daughter Gigi is like being invited into their own wonderful imaginary world. Three children, grown-up or less so, sharing their life in a poetic and mischievous world. A “wooden shack inviting the natural world to join us in our private space. As if outside was a jungle and we had made our nest up in the treetops… except that we are in the heart of Paris!” the couple like to jokingly imagine. But what is there in this refuge, this bubble of happiness suspended in the air? Music, obviously! That afternoon, it played, like every day, through a characterful old valve amplifier and some 1970s speakers selected from the family collection.Co-founders of the Radiooooo webradio (a sort of musical time machine, which they have just introduced in its new version) the two Parisians fuse together their passion and their philosophy of life in this humanistic and artistic project. Their own way of inciting people to be curious and open to the world, by being moved by the “common love and universal language” that is sound. Happily living and working together, Noemi and Benjamin feed off each other’s ideas. Endless curiosity, thanks to which they hope to preserve their childlike innocence and with it, their creative powers. Artists first and foremost, their apartment is dotted with large sketchbooks in which the intrepid Gigi likes to express herself, to her parents’ delight. A ballet of pencils, of felt-tips, of paper cut-outs and of delicate colourful collages, that leaves the neighbouring furniture pieces dumb with admiration. As if they are grateful to spend their “second life” (for here, nothing is really new) alongside this family that considers them as guardians of time gone by. A time that is perhaps just waiting to be reinvented?
Location
Paris
Author
Caroline Balvay
Photos and videos
Valerio Geraci
There’s something quite magical about being able to create with the person you share your life with (...) It’s a continual dialogue that makes the ideas and the works more and more surprising.
TSF
Noemi, Benjamin: Can you introduce yourselves, please?
Benjamin
I’m 47 years old, a beautiful moustache hidden in a bush of a beard, Noemi’s happy husband and the fortunate father of two adorable girls, Heidi and Gigi. I’m an all-round artist and also the creator, along with a bunch of friends, of the Radiooooo website.
Noemi
I’m a visual artist and a bit of an all-rounder, co-founder of Radiooooo, Gigi’s loving mum and Benjamin’s happy wife!
TSF
Tell us about your fabulous musical project, Radiooooo and its evolution!
Benjamin & Noemi
Radiooooo is a musical machine that travels through time and space. You can listen to the most beautiful music on the planet from a world map and a timeline that goes from 1900 to today. It’s a collaborative site where an international community of people from all over the world sends us the musical treasures hidden in their memory and culture. We attempt to offer a window on the world, the culture, our neighbours. To spark curiosity, to communicate and to move each other around a shared love and a universal language, music in all its splendour and power. This last year we worked hard with a great team of programmers who allowed us to evolve the site radically, to make it more fluid, richer, clearer: in short, more pleasant to use!
TSF
We travel in time with you too! Where do your furniture and accessories come from?
Benjamin
Just like Radiooooo, our home is like the result of a treasure hunt. It’s a sort of junk shop where everything is found through our wanderings, our encounters, things we fall in love with and our friendships with artists and craftsmen.
TSF
Why do you prefer to surround yourselves with objects that have already had a life, rather than others that are new?
Benjamin
Both of us love things that have a history. It’s a bit like harbouring ghosts! There’s a pleasant side to feeling the patina of time around you. To know that an object has had many lives, and is now part of ours. The older our finds are, the richer they seem to us, and nothing is more frightful to us than a new object, just emerged from the factory.
Noemi
It’s not just a preference for the aesthetics, materials and quality of objects made in the past – although we are much more sensitive to this – but more to the fact that something was created with an intention. It’s also a willingness to recycle, to keep things that have lost none of their usefulness, let alone their charm. Like guardians of precious objects from a time that no longer exists, we love this notion of preserving beauty. Nothing is lost; everything is transformed. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
TSF
How did you imagine this new family nest?
Noemi
In the manner of a wooden hut where we would welcome nature into our personal space in a friendly sort of way. As if outside it was a jungle, and we had made our nest at the top of a tree… except, we are in the heart of Paris. But that doesn’t stop us from dreaming!
TSF
Apart from each other, what are the most important things you need to thrive here?
Benjamin
Music, of course, is a central element for us. We listen to it on an old valve amplifier that’s quite capricious and the 1970s speakers that come from my dad’s house; he collects them! They produce such a round, warm, comforting sound. Our bookshelves are also small personal museums, our day-to-day sources of inspiration.
TSF
Where do you prefer to create, at home or elsewhere?
Noemi
It depends. During the day we work in our studio (which is not far away) or at home in the evening when Gigi wants to sleep soundly before midnight!
TSF
You are both artists, where do you get your inspiration?
Benjamin
We draw upon the infinite ocean of time, and our curiosity takes us where it pleases!
Noemi
From each other! There’s something quite magical about being able to create with the person you share your life with. To be able to bounce ideas off each other and create something that you could never have done alone. It’s a continual dialogue that makes the ideas and the works more and more surprising. But there are also our daughters, who plunge us back in and constantly remind us of the highest form of freedom: that of childhood!
TSF
What do you want to pass on to your daughter Gigi?
Benjamin & Noemi
Knowing how to stay inquisitive and free! To be able to marvel at the smallest things. Being able to sit on a bench and be satisfied with a ray of sunshine, the caress of a breath of wind or the song of a bird. A deep love and respect for nature and all the beings with whom we share this earth. And, finally, to live with love by approaching life and the world with kindness and tenderness.
TSF
Where do you like to take her in Paris (or elsewhere) to marvel at the world?
Benjamin
The place we head to as soon as we have a moment, our old family farm in the Gers countryside, our own wonderfully dilapidated refuge. It’s a family sanctuary passed down from generation to generation since the 16th century, which we have the responsibility (and the luck!) to take care of today.
TSF
What will be your next news?
Benjamin
We’ ve just launched the new version of Radiooooo! We’ll continue to share the beauty of the world, and to encourage sharing. What’s fantastic is that this project is in perpetual evolution, fed and enriched today by more than 300,000 people around the world!
Noemi
We’re setting up new musical ‘islands’, not only themed, but also selections from personal collections of artists we admire, and others that are emerging. We’ll also have spaces to support causes that we support, and that can no longer be ignored (No More Plastic, Black Lives Matter, among others). And we’re working on the second Polo&Pan album too. It’s a collaboration that has been going on since the creation of the band, our beloved friends, seven years ago. We have the privilege of total freedom to create the whole visual universe. We also had the immense joy of designing the new box set by our dear friend Vladimir Cosma who is always surprising us with his countless creations!
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