FOR art curator Defne Ayas, discovering her Shanghai home in a 1930s European-inspired building hidden away on Hunan Road in the former French Concession was a watershed moment. The striking garden house explains the hidden architectural gem is more than simply a place to live. It is an inspiration.

Dividing her time between Shanghai, Istanbul and New York, contemporary art curator and producer Ayas, 35, lives with her long-time partner Francis Alys, who is a classical music composer and a conceptualist whose mind roams freely in a range of fields from art to design, from philosophy to analytics of Asia-Pacific multi-nationals.

Raised in Istanbul, Ayas enrolled in an Ivy-league university in 1995 in the United States, where she met her now-husband, a German citizen who grew up in Caracas, Venezuela. After college, she worked at the prestigious New Museum of Contemporary Art, then joined PERFORMA, the biennial of visual art performance, as a curator where she organized acclaimed projects with an international roster of artists and curators, including China's famous names Qiu Zhijie, Xu Zhen and Xiao He.

In 2005, her husband forged ahead to move to Shanghai, and after a six-month curatorial stint in Amsterdam, Ayas also relocated to the city. Their first home was a lane house on Huaihai Road M.

However, with a bat problem and issues of mold that were dangerous both to their health and their artworks, they moved to the current apartment inside a 1930s building, where they are surrounded by many friends, both local and international, who "act as neighbors in an old-fashioned sense," according to Ayas. "When I need some medicine, or some spices are missing in the kitchen, someone is always a bike-ride away."

The couple's two-bedroom apartment is on the second floor. They prefer to spend a lot of time in the garden, weather permitting.

"We love the trees, the birds chirping in the morning, the milkman, the urban recyclers. It feels like a cinematic experience frozen in a certain time at times. I think this is what drew us to Shanghai in the first place," Ayas said.

"When the weather is grim, we use the sun room at the front, covered with windows, which is perfect for breakfasts and tete-a-tete dinners," she added.

The space has a casual vibe: light-filled, old woods, neutrals, lots of linen, calm and, above all, comfortable. "Our home is our sanctuary," Ayas said.

"We rarely let people in who are not part of our intimate family. We only welcome those who we feel are generous in heart and soul, and have something genuine to contribute both to Shanghai as well as to the table. It's tough we do not have kids yet, kids are our favorite guests because their minds roam so freely. Food is always hand-prepared by us," she added.

Their dinner parties, Sunday tea parties and weekend picnics are salon-style and full of colorful people, including museum directors and curators, artists, art dealers, architects, musicians, journalists, chefs, filmmakers and budding Shanghai socialites.

"Small artworks and objects that my husband and I have collected over time are what makes our home feel alive," said Ayas, looking around her apartment, which is notable for its choice of not only small objects but also large ones.

The living area features comfortable sofas, designer tables and chairs, award-winning carpets from Bishkek and Afghanistan, pillows, books and lamps; the kitchen has countertops, copper cookware and a range of objects made from coconut shells.

The artworks on view are a combination of unique artworks and editions, as well as solid wood works by emerging furniture designers.

As for the bedroom, there is a bed-box designed by Shanghai-based MU, accompanied by emerging Beijing-based artist He An's red neon sculpture that reads "I miss you" in Chinese characters, and a Juergen Teller photograph of model Kate Moss lying among white bedsheets.

"We could not live in a minimal place. At work, we both have to make quite precise decisions from display to finances to technical matters. Our home is where we can let it all go, letting our souvenirs and collectibles run amok," Ayas said. "We see our artworks alive, living with us, cozying things up."

As a curator and educator specializing at the cross-section of visual art performance, new media and architecture, Ayas also works as a director of programs for Arthub Asia.

Ayas said they have never been Sinologists themselves, but "grew to understand this country much quicker than we have imagined over the past five years." Travelling to every corner of the country helped, too.

"I think there is an imminent future for Sino-Turkish relations. Being from the very tip of Asia, namely Istanbul, and living now in Shanghai, one of China's main engines, certainly allowed me to build cultural bridges of exchange and empathy across Asia, first through Arthub Asia, the non-profit I co-direct, then through more diplomatic means yet to be determined," she said.

"After all, the people who live in my country now were nomads living in this country once."


Q: What's the best thing about living in Shanghai?

A: The best thing about Shanghai is that even though you might be living here for years, you always maintain a sense of wonder and discovery in your every day life, as if you just arrived in the city.

Q: Describe your home in three words.

A: Our home is cozy, intimate and private, but open for loved ones with good laughter.

Q: What's the best view outside your window?

A: The best view is probably the kind you cannot view, but hear, especially the sound of the morning birds chirping.

Q: How do you scent your home?

A: To scent our house, we have candles and resins to burn on charcoal, some incense from Japan and Thailand, even a perfume our friends at Symrise made for the Moon project that works as an air freshener. All are at our disposal, but we are not too adamant about scent really.

Q: Where do you source furniture in Shanghai?

A: Regarding furniture, we have a combination of young China-based furniture designers mixed with fake antiques, as we have yet to resolve what is the "real" antique in Shanghai.

Q: How do you unwind?

A: To unwind I light up a candle or two, put on some music, prepare myself a cup of tea. I love it also when my husband plays his own compositions, they really touch me deep in my bones.