Alesha O’Connor On Making Her Mark Through Design

As Alesha O'Connor joins the Y25, she shares her reflections on creativity, healing and finding her own way, in conversation with Y25 2021 alumna Chantelle Cobby.

Most people will have given minimal thought throughout their lifetime to metal. To the way it can harbour a heartbeat, absorb the warmth of a body, or bend without ever breaking. 

But Alesha O’Connor - erudite, effervescent, eloquent - is not most people.

When I connect with the Tāmaki Makaurau-based multidisciplinary designer over the phone, she’s barely unpacked her bags from this year’s Y25 retreat. The emotion of the last few days is still lingering - making a fitting backdrop for a rich conversation spanning passion and purpose, healing and triumph, that, much like metal, stretches across time.

"...life is too short to do what others want or have an expectation of you to do. Everyone should pursue their passions. So I did this."

“I never thought I’d become a wearable arts designer - that wasn’t ever on the bingo card,” the 23-year-old tells me as we settle in. “I’ve always been exposed to creative things - thanks to Mum.” She enrolled me in dance and performing arts. We often watched The Hunger Games together - I was always inspired by how the wearable art in that film could advocate, protest, and be the language for the soul. And we’d watch the Met Gala every year, too, and deep-dive into the explanation behind each piece. That inspired me, because it wasn’t just adornment; it was companionship within objects, and experimentation of space with the body.”

It was on a trip to Te Whanganui-a-Tara - “again, thanks Mum,” Alesha laughs - where that seed of inspiration first bloomed. Creations similar to what she’d witnessed on-screen were being crafted right here in New Zealand - and she wanted to be part of it all. 

“I was originally discouraged by some teachers that didn’t see design as a practical thing,” she reflects, “but life is too short to do what others want or have an expectation of you to do. Everyone should pursue their passions. So I did this.” ‘This,’ is a double degree at AUT in Spatial Design and Marketing that Alesha wrapped up barely two months ago - with a bespoke metal jewellery collection, crafted using motion capture and 3D scanning, as her capstone project. 

Going by pictures online, the triptych of work - To Hold, To Heal, To Protect, To Honour - is stunning. A little ethereal, a little industrial, it’s an instant idée fixe. But it’s only by travelling back in time, through immense lived trauma, devastation, and loss, that one can truly understand and appreciate the beauty of the art (and the sheer strength of the artist) in all its poignant, transcendent glory.

“I went through a house fire three years ago,” Alesha shares. “I lost everything I owned and my childhood house, and felt very empty in my identity. Throughout my recovery process, I went to therapy, but constantly talking about it and telling my story got exhausting. People saw me for what happened to me, instead of as a strong individual who could still become the best version of myself.”

In AUT’s wet labs and metal labs, amongst 3D scanners, laser cutters, and welding machines, Alesha found respite - and making, she says, became her way of healing. “I’m so blessed that I was able to make to triumph over my pain. These pieces [in the collection] were based on what was seen, heard, and felt in that fire. I’ve suffered a lot from feeling the blaze and how hot it was. But metal actually helped cool my skin. It was the opposite of what I had been through, reiterating that I was in a safe place. But then, with metal, it can mimic your body heat - and I thought that was special, too, because it’s an extension of me in another medium, like embracing myself in a different form. I see it as a positive augmentation.”

"Iron sharpens iron. As in, if two people co-create together, they can be unstoppable and create something greater than both of them."

Alesha’s in a new era now, though. Design remains a huge part of her work and world, of course, but her creative sensibility has begun extending outward.

“People have reached out wanting me to make pieces for them,” she explains. “A Paralympian who went through bone cancer was the first person I worked with. She said, ‘Hey, I want you to be on the journey with me, to make a wearable art piece that speaks to my survival and triumph.’ Just having people trust me with those sensitive stories - for them to support me and back me, and for me to then give voice to what they’ve experienced - I’m so blessed.”

That process, Alesha admits, can be stressful, and she’s still figuring out how all the pieces - suppliers, collaborators, and access to equipment, for example - fit together. But there’s one question that keeps her going: What if this works? “Something one of the Y25 girls said that resonated with me was that iron sharpens iron. As in, if two people co-create together, they can be unstoppable and create something greater than both of them. That’s my why - being able to hear these stories and then make things bigger than either of us. What if I can make this a platform for people to have their voices on - advocating for these communities, showing what’s possible with art and design, and creating new frontiers of self-expression?”

“Hope is not an esoteric, elusive thing that only the special among us get to taste. It’s a mindset. If you believe in yourself, you can get through the bad times, the unimaginable times. You can always reframe and reinvent yourself."

Alesha’s well aware of how bodacious that vision is. But she’s looked challenges straight in the eye before, and isn’t afraid to do it again (“dream big, I guess,” she laughs, right after revealing that exhibiting at the Met Gala also makes an appearance atop her list of ambitions. And hey, she’s already been featured at TEDx here in New Zealand, so all evidence points to her ability to smash ‘em all).

As our conversation draws to a close, I ask Alesha what words of wisdom she has for fellow women who may see a piece of themselves in her story. “Hope,” she says, “is not an esoteric, elusive thing that only the special among us get to taste. It’s a mindset. If you believe in yourself, you can get through the bad times, the unimaginable times. Those antagonistic experiences don’t define you - you can always reframe and reinvent yourself.”