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What to see at Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Designstravaganza

What to see at Sight Unseen OFFSITE

The third annual Sight Unseen OFFSITE—curated by Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer, founders of design magazine (and online shop) Sight Unseen—features a slew of unique international designers hailing from Vancouver to Moscow, as well as a room-sized installation from New York City-based architects Leong Leong.

Located at the 15th floor of The Grace Building (1114 Avenue of the Americas, May 13-16), Khemsurov and Singer’s collection is impressive array. Highlights included the slender, sculptural, steel furniture of Moscow-based architecture firm Crosby Studios (their pieces are actually fabricated in Brooklyn). The young firm was founded by Harry Nuriev and Dmitry Vorontsov in 2014.

In pieces that reminded me of early experimental Bauhaus (think Oskar Schlemmer costumes, plus a dash of László Moholy-Nagy and Eames coat hanger), Montreal-based Jean-Pascal Gauthier blends a playful mixture of lines, materials, and functions. 10 of his unique hand-made creations, crafted from wood, marble, brass, and steel, are on display.

These dichroic lights, which come in modular components for easy customization, are from Toronto-based Shelter Bay.

Sight Unseen organized this collaboration among five New York- and Norwegian-based designers (“Norway x New York“).

In addition to textiles, furniture, lighting, and decor, this installation from Leong Leong (dubbed TOPO) graces the entrance of the fair. The space is a multi-sensory experience: soft foam cylinders have been carved into a gently curving landscape that eerily feels like a computer-modeled landscape directly translated to physical form. Mirrors make the space seem endless while a sound system, designed in conjunction with Arup, listens, processes, and amplifies ambient sounds to produce an otherworldly digital humming.

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