Naseer Yasna & Hedieh Wojgani

Afghan Naseer Yasna (Mansouri) learned his craft in Iran from Hassan Khondani, an Iraqi master woodcarver when he was only 13.  Now Naseer is himself a master woodcarver, designer and educator, who specialises in handmade woodwork inspired by the rich heritage of Afghan and Islamic design traditions. Naseer returned to Afghanistan where he joined Turquoise Mountain, a charity dedicated to preserving traditional crafts, where he met his future partner Hedieh Wojgani. Hedieh is an Iranian architect, artist and designer raised in Germany, who trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and UCL before joining Turquoise Mountain. Her work is inspired by the rich culture of her heritage and the diverse influences of her nomadic background. The artisan duo now lives in London, where they run Lazo Studios, a design studio and artisan wood workshop, combining their different skills and perspectives. 

In their work, Naseer Yasna and Hedieh Wojgani seek to present a positive image of the rich and sophisticated cultures of their heritages. With every bespoke object created, Naseer and Hedieh fuse the time-honoured practices of Central and West Asian woodcarving traditions with contemporary designs, to create beautiful handcrafted heirloom pieces. These pieces are vessels for human stories and evoke a sense of connection between cultures and places. Representative of this is the Ay Khanoum (Lady Moon) chess set, which takes its name from Ay Khanoum, a famous historic site in the north of Afghanistan. The design of the box and the faceted abstractions of the pieces draw inspiration from the origami of Afghan rocks and landscape, and the figurines are inspired by pre-Islamic mythical tribal elements from remote tribes of eastern Afghanistan.

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