What does the idea of 'home' mean to you? 

A multidisciplinary cohort of Australian and international creatives have been invited to interrogate this question, answering with objects, lighting, photography, and video. The collection of works ranges from functional to sculptural, literal to metaphoric, and acts as tokens for audiences to question or reflect on their notion of 'home'.

Showcased in the Coco Flip gallery space, Reflections Of Home is a celebration of the diversity of thought and culture found within the creative community. Although we are separated by continents and borders, heritage and culture, we can use art and design as a form of expression to share ideas and communicate our unique perspectives.

Reflections Of Home is made possible thanks to the generous support of @coco_flip and @ceresfairwood.

A dynamic mix of AAPI female-identified designers have been invited to participate in this important exhibition during NYCxDesign 2023 to both challenge and address the ideas of reflection through surface exploration, materiality, and self discovery. 

Early Bronze Age culture saw mirrors made of bronze in Southeast Asia, creating an assemblage of cultural and geographical reflecting points; later glass became a prime material used for mirrors at the start of the Han Dynasty. Mirrors have a history of being regarded as sacred objects having magical powers. They were used similarly as today but traded as tokens of affection, symbols of alliances between states, used in religious rituals, and as burial objects. Mirrors were and are powerful objects that could shift the energy in a room, a belief that continues to resonate in the practice of feng shui. Today, mirrors continue to have optical power as they play with our perceptions of body and space. A quick glance in the mirror reaffirms our sense of self and can often reflect one's anxiety, fears, self distortion, and dysmorphia. At times one can see a mirage rather than a 'mirror' of our reflection; a distorted reality. 

Self reflection is a key part of what is needed to grow as a human, a creative, a community member. Seeing reflections of self within others is also critical to growth within one's career or craft; believing you can achieve what you see if only you can see it in yourself. Self reflection under the AAPI umbrella projects a blur asking the questions; how do I see myself; how do I see others; how do others see me? This charged concept of mirroring and reflection is of endless fascination, and especially for the AAPI community, who has struggled to be seen within the historically white-centric United States of America.

We created ‘Mirrors for Aliens’ for the exhibition reflecting on our Indian and immigrant identities.

We were born & raised in India and now work in the USA on visas. India is our home and America has been our platform. Our identity is one of impermanence, the highs of our creative endeavors juxtaposed against reminders of our outsider status - not American, not Indian-American, not even permanent residents. USCIS* calls us Non-Resident Aliens.

These reflections on transient identity serve as the foundation for our latest work, Mirrors for Aliens, steel thalis polished to a mirror-like finish, to form reflective surfaces. The steel thali is ubiquitous in Indian households and restaurants, an unbreakable plate for all meals that embodies practicality, frugality, strength, and endurance. In Mirrors for Aliens, the thali acts as an iconic marker of our Indian-ness, humble yet aspirational, and of our Indian futures - simultaneously shiny and faint. The mirrored steel offers slightly distorted, soft reflections that speak to our blurred sense of identity and the complex emotional landscape that comes with living between cultures, countries, home and work.

See press coverage of the exhibition in The New York Times, Surface Mag, Elle Decor, Sight Unseen, Whitewall, The Architect’s Newspaper, Sixty Six and Wallpaper*

​Glass Rice presents Lifeforce, our annual female-identifying group show featuring sculpture, painting, and one-of-a-kind furniture. This exhibition is not only a celebration of female visionaries, but also highlights the special and impactful nature of the objects we choose to dwell amongst.

Objects carefully placed throughout the gallery form spatial vignettes - each “scene” feeding from one to the next. Lifeforce calls attention to the energy objects emanate. As creative extensions, the works in this show are infused with the “life-force” of each artist - embedded with their individual ideas, unique forms of expression, and identities. Sustainability, humor, softness, ephemerality, regeneration, and challenging old schools of thought make up only a fraction of what these pieces convey.

Despite being seemingly inanimate, the presence and influence objects can have on our spaces, both physical and mental, are profound.

Debuting at Sight Unseen’s Offsite Online, Soft Geometry’s Ello lamps began as a personal photo series in which the California design duo documented plays of light on glass, water, skin, dust, and other surfaces. They decided to try to recreate in object form the moments when the light diffused and glowed, picturing frosted sugar jellies as a visual reference, and found that quality in resin formed in a textured silicone mold. The lamp’s tubular stack can be built to any height, and its singular bend is a small ode to Eileen Gray’s Bibendum lounge.

See press coverage for the Elio Lamps at Offsite on Dezeen, Sight Unseen and Design Milk

Imagined, for uncertain times, is a virtual gallery showcase imagined and self-produced by 11 independent design studios from 9 countries. Born out of an idea for creators to share in both hope and pain at the time of a global pandemic, the show explores dual themes of ‘imagining unbound’ and ‘uncertainty’ through the distinct lens of each participating studio. 

Utharaa Zacharias & Palaash Chaudhary of furniture design studio soft-geometry initially conceived the idea while in lockdown in California and wrote nervously to a dream list of designers they were inspired by,  but had never met or even spoken to. The responses were surprisingly affirmative and heart-warming - exchanged stories of challenges, loss, determination, and hope in the opportunity to come together, offer support, and create. 

With conventional design weeks and tradeshows being effectively canceled both designers and the audience are missing out on the important cultural fabric that the exhibitions provide. Imagined, hopes to fill a small part of the void by presenting a model vision for creative collaboration, mutual support within the design community and an opportunity to engage with a distanced audience.

The show will be presented on a dedicated digital platform from May 8- June 8, as a visual narrative of the 10 extraordinary works of furniture, lighting and sculpture,  inhabiting an imagined gallery landscape created by Barcelona based SPOT studio. 

Participating artists:

Eimear Ryan, Argot Studio / Paris, FRANCE

Serban Ionescu, Serbanserban / Brooklyn, USA

Laurids Gallee / Rotterdam, NETHERLANDS - Vienna, AUSTRIA

Lea Mestres / Paris, FRANCE

Merle Flügge & Job Mouwen, Supertoys Supertoys / NETHERLANDS

Benjamin Gillespie, Ovuud / Philadelphia, USA

Yeon JinYoung, Hang Jin / Seoul, S KOREA

Utharaa Zacharias & Palaash Chaudhary, soft-geometry / San Jose, USA - Kochi, INDIA

Adam & Mark, VIDIVIXI (caps, one word) / Mexico City, MEXICO

Andreas & Steve, Voukenas Petrides / New York, USA - Athens, Greece

Curated by - Utharaa L Zacharias & Palaash Chaudhary, soft-geometry / San Jose, USA - Kochi, INDIA

3D visualization and virtual landscape - Nicolas Canelas, SPOT Studio / Barcelona, SPAIN

See press coverage for the exhibition on Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Design Milk, Ignant & AD Pro

Pour the Line is presented as part of AR et al., which is a series of pop-ups produced by Abacus Row in collaboration with others – independent designers, artists and small business owners. Abacus Row is an independent line of jewelry designed and crafted in San Francisco. AR et al. is an on-going project for Abacus Row to explore various creative synergies, to showcase the work of fellow creatives, and to build community.

re.riddle presents Pour the Line

$3899 is a high sum to charge for a donut. A natural response may be “Is this the correct price?”

The answer depends: Is it the real thing, or a thing of art?

This line of questioning is the key concern of re.riddle’s Pour the Line, a site-store-happening-anything, that takes place at Abacus Row this September through October in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood.

A ‘revisit' to The Store (1960) by Claes Oldenburg, where the artist occupied an abandoned shop in New York with “products” for sale, is what inspired this “thing” we’re creating. The provocation then was that its offerings—an inventory of banal, everyday objects such as a dress, ice cream sundae, iron, pistol, slice of cake—were all made of papier mâché. Hence, their referential presentations in the context of conventional commercial consumption echoed the contemporary debates about an existing, tenuous relationship between art and life, reality and non-reality.

Indeed, this postmodern theme has been thoroughly unpacked by art historians. It’s not our intention to re-analyze it. Rather, Pour the Line is hinged on the persistence and relevance of its ideas as they relate to us today. Ambiguity. Spontaneity. Irony. What role do the paradoxical and dialectical play in our current human experience?

A concerted effort made by creators, artists and thinkers from multidisciplinary backgrounds has been led by re.riddle to explore these concepts and questions. Pour the Line’s program will entail design and art objects for sale, artists talks, performances, manifestations and anything else it feels compelled to do. In addition to operating during regular business hours, experimental programs that comment on the theme of art and life will take place on random days and at “off” times such as after midnight or before dawn. Details will likewise be shared by alternative means and methods.

At stake is the risk that modern commercialism and over-consciousness might eclipse the spotlight directed at the sliver of space between art and life. This is where various freedoms—and monsters—may be born. Such a liminal experience is not always paradisiacal, however; eventually one must land somewhere. Perhaps, and we hope, it is occasionally on the line.

- L. Lui, Creative Director

soft-geometry presents a new collection of solid wood furniture inspired by desserts and different notions of ‘sweet’. The collection titled ‘Dessert Menu’ was launched at the AD Design Show in New York in March 2019.

See press coverage for the collection on AD Clever, Interior Design, Sight Unseen and Platform.

Soft-geometry presents the summer-winter (sw) collection that explores many personalities within the same object, defined by the materials and processes that make them. 

The collection is inspired by the changing of seasons and how people, places, lifestyles and conversations are different in different seasons.

Do objects have personalities?

The S-W or summer-winter collection explores the idea of product personalities and the material choices that define them. The 3-piece collection of a coffee table, end table and side chair are built in simplistic steel frames that are dressed with interchangeable tops in different materials. The lines of the frames emulate the first lines of a sketch while the tops emulate the layers of color and texture that complete the picture. Together they weave a bridge connecting the slow, soft, intricate, hand-worked processes of the tops with the pure, geometric, efficient, industrially-manufactured steel frames.

Each material used lends to a distinct character that evokes different associations from different people. The hand-woven cane can remind one of summer evenings stretched on cane mats on verandahs, while the flat color on bent steel can rouse up memories of painted playground swings, slides and seesaws. The velvet may inspire a cool calm of mountains; while the hand knitted wool might have you cozied up against a furry pet on a cold winter morning.

The collection illustrates a diversity in products that mirror the diversity of the people that use them and pose a limitless opportunity to grow into more materials, processes and personalities. In a small way, the pieces hope to inspire a rich personality culture into the realm of furniture, recognizing, emphasizing and celebrating the many identities that can be born from material qualities.

See press coverage of the exhibition and the sw collection on Milk Decoration, An Interior, Sight Unseen and Husk Design Blog.