About the Salon

The Interior Beauty Salon was conceived by Nicolás (A.K.A. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo) in 2017 in The Bronx, NY, to serve as a space where that which is not necessarily seen or manifested in tangible ways, is seeded, nurtured and given room to grow safely. This includes processes melding art, ritual, ceremony, rites of passage, and healing. Some of the channels deployed include writing, listening, talking, moving, drawing, journaling, contemplating, meditating, breathing and performing. The Interior Beauty Salon was born out of the urgency to re-shift the focus from the external and the extraneous in contemporary society and instead to place attention on the very depths of who we might ultimately be. As such, those who partake of the Salon’s offerings, whether as individuals or groups, engage with Nicolás, its Founding Director, in developing rites of passages, constellating pressing questions, writing for holistic purposes, creating meaningful ceremonies, and opening up to ways of being that take into account the impermanence yet the relevance of our presence in this dimension, which you may call life or give it any other name that you may wish.

The Interior Beauty Salon welcomes and celebrates the contributions of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as the LGBTQIPAE communities, and therefore opens wide its doors to anyone regardless of gender, sex and race, or economic, religious or spiritual backgrounds. The Salon stands in solidarity with all whose bodies have been historically exploited, marginalized, silenced, excluded and dismissed. It also honors the Earth and all of its beings, and for this reason it conceives of all of its activities and events as vegan, that is, with the exception of some items like honey or wax, when these are sourced from organic farming venues. It also advocates for fair trade and fair pay for all of those the Salon deals with. At this moment, the Salon is aware of some its limitations regarding accessibility, yet it would like to know how it can make itself available to you.

The Salon works as an online forum, an itinerant organization and art experience, and as the umbrella under which different events are held. The Interior Beauty Salon would eventually consider traveling around the world and functioning in physical form, at a given site, for several months at a time.

The Salon finds inspiration in the path tilled by some precursors like Josefina Báez, Lygia Clark, Billy X. Curmano, Anna Halprin, Linda Mary Montano, and Hélio Oiticica.

Image credit — home page: photographer Johanna Wilson / © 2016 Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful. Documentation of //, presented in New York at The 8th Floor, as part of Enacting Stillness, Curated by Sara Reisman

None of the materials on this website should be used without permission from the owner