Queer grief has its own contours; it should be recognizable to anyone, but it radiates from its own specificity. Elizabeth Baudouin’s new short film Breakup Text glows with queer grief, detailing the end of a tumultuous lesbian relationship portrayed by Baudouin’s own wife, the film’s star Natalie Shirinian, and co-star Amanda Grace Jenkins. Set in a bummed-out L.A., and soundtracked by shimmering contributions from Jónsi, Kali Malone, Leila Bordreuil, and more, Breakup Text prompts viewers to consider that heartbreak, particularly of the queer kind, might be not only an emotional but an audio-visual experience.

A painting forms a crux of that prompt. Made by Elizabeth and Natalie’s friend Pazza Pennello, Room of the Absolute portrays a living room with a female body made visible by intention. Born in Odessa and based in Kyiv until recently, Pennello has shown her pop-inflected, Soviet-esque paintings internationally, and is included in the Saatchi Art collection. Pennello emailed with Surface from her new home in her hometown Chornomorsk, about life during wartime, coming out of patriarchy’s shadows, and seeing her work on film.

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Name: Cowley Manor Experimental

Designer: De Matos Ryan and Chzon

Location: The Cotswolds

On Offer: On the very grounds Edward the Confessor traded for those that would become Westminster Abbey, and upon which residences have been built since 1695, now stands the Grade II–listed Cowley Manor. It’s been a site of innovation for more than a century—the country’s first private home to use concrete, it was also the pastoral dreamworld that inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in Wonderland.

This summer, it returns to the imagination as the latest destination by The Experimental Group, tucked into 55 acres of rolling pastures hydrated by a 19th-century water-staircase of fountains and watched over by head gardener David Masters—not to mention the stone eagles and lions, and real llamas.

Since opening in 2017, Public Records has established itself as one of New York’s hubs for culture, encompassing a record store, vegan restaurant, a Sound Room for live shows and some of the city’s best DJ bills, and, as of last winter, the soigné lounge Upstairs.

This summer, founders Shane Davis and Francis Harris moved outside, rethinking the asphalt lot adjacent to the space’s airy garden into the Nursery. Local firm Mattaforma designed a U-shaped, passively heated and cooled greenhouse from shipping containers for the space, which can serve as private dining in good weather and as storage for Public Records’ ample plant collection during the winter. L.A.’s Cactus Store offered landscape design, while Brooklyn’s Space Exploration iterated the DJ booth.

On Sundays all summer long, that booth will be graced by some major talent: for Pride weekend, DJ Sprinkles and Bézeir absolutely levitated a heated, queer crowd; this past weekend, the legendary King Britt brought his essential Blacktronica lecture series to the Nursery and Sound Room for a day-long festival. None of this would matter without extraordinary sound, and like the rest of Public Records, the Nursery has got it. Ojas and NNNN crafted the sound system, with acoustic advisory by Arup, and Harris and his team constructed the custom DJ booth monitoring system with Dalbec Audio. Sounds good to us.

In the dog days of summer, there are few things as restorative as a good shower—particularly one punctuated by Aesop’s botanical olfactions. With the expansion of the brand’s line of cleansing bars to include the exfoliating Polish and the gentle Nurture, that’s more true now than ever. Polish combines pumice, pine, and sage for easy exfoliation, while Nurture’s combination of shea butter, cedar atlas, and lavender stem supports hydration as it cleans. They join Aesop’s signature cleansing slab, renamed Refresh, to ensure that sandy, sunny, and oceanic excursions live on in memory and not in rough, itchy, or moisture-stripped skin. From $21

When: Until Sept. 1

Where: Gagosian Beverly Hills

What: The burgeoning painter and former punk vocalist transforms Gagosian Beverly Hills into a makeshift tennis court, surrounded by his vivid canvases depicting people of color in states of luxury and leisure. Viewers are encouraged to imagine themselves as players in his tennis game, as well as ruminate on romanticized visions of class, belonging, and inheritance throughout America’s past. “The implications of leisure and class draw me in, while, as a player, I know it to be an absolutely maddening endeavor,” he says. “A well-dressed struggle for victory can be analogous to life itself.”

As temperatures in Phoenix sizzled above 110° F for a record-breaking 31 days in a row, some speculate the city is literally cooking itself. Climate change is partially to blame, but the sprawling Arizona capital’s extreme heat is exacerbated by rapid-fire growth. Greater Phoenix has swelled from 2 million to 5 million residents since 1990, blanketing the city in 14,600 square miles of suburbs, strip malls, and highways that form a classic heat island. Vehicles and air conditioners are generating their own waste heat, which buildings and infrastructure absorb. That spells harm for the city’s homeless population—of the 429 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County last year, those experiencing homelessness made up more than 40 percent.

Room57 Gallery is driven by the idea that art and design discovery should be organic, and that collectors should be able to personally engage with works before bringing them into their home. The exhibition space creates the impression of an upscale home rather than a gallery, incorporating an eclectic yet clean curation of works from paintings and photography to furniture, decor, and more.

Surface Says: A forward-looking space that isn’t afraid to blend styles and disciplines, Room57 Gallery stands out for its dynamic, apartment-like setting and exhibitions that embrace the rising vanguard of digital artists.

Katamari Damacy keeps rolling on without Keita Takahashi, its creator.

An ancient Czech Republic glass workshop may have hosted sacred rituals.

Internet cafes may be wholly obsolete, but these last few are holding strong.

Eduardo Kac has been waiting three decades to send his hologram to space.