The Salon & the Pleasure Dome

A salon is a social gathering for like-minded individuals to connect, share, and converse in a creative open space. The salon is a centuries-old concept, originating in 16th-century Italy and taking root in France from the 17th-19th centuries. In the 1920s, Gertrude Stein revived the concept of the salon, making it the center of French intellectual and artistic life. Every Saturday evening, prominent artists, writers, and philosophers would gather in her home to exchange ideas and share in conversation. For Stein and her contemporaries, the salon became the locus of the modernist movement.

Now a century later, the salon is experiencing a revival. Technology has given us new means for connection but its virtual artifice leaves us alienated in an illusion of relatedness. We post and story in algorithmic vacuums, where the only faces we see are screens of our own projections. The text message has lost the textual sign of the symbol and the visionary sacrament of the real in the fantasy of enunciation. Our gaze is not set-apart but separated. The salon resuscitates the analog atmosphere and organic warmth of of face-to-face human interaction.

We are dreaming the salon dream onwards. Somaraja Salons are a free-associative space for conversation and connection. At its core, the salon is a curated dinner party, where people enjoy each other’s good company. Each salon has a topical focus, which one or more people will present for about twenty minutes to get the conversation going. After this, everyone is invited to mingle and connect. A salon is a loosely structured possibility.

Le Salon

Samraj Asana is the link between clinic and salon; salon as extension of clinic, clinic as intension of salon