What’s Happening: On its first anniversary, the bastion of Scottish design ingenuity stages a group exhibition celebrating the labor of love inherent to the country’s craft traditions.

The Download: Bard, a recent addition to the former port town Leith, threw open its doors in Scotland’s oldest customs house just over a year ago. At the opening preview, co-founders and husbands Hugo Macdonald and James Stevens told guests (Surface among them) of uprooting from London during the pandemic and settling in Edinburgh. There, they dreamed of opening a space purpose-built for showcasing Scottish craft. The country has dedicated galleries and museums, of course, but Macdonald and Stevens envisioned “something that wasn’t [a collection of] objects on plinths for people to look at and view as art, and something that wasn’t a gift shop, either.” The duo spent a whirlwind summer touring the country’s mainland and islands, surveying the state of design by meeting and observing 60 makers.

“The storytelling at the heart of all these people and things is really what we’re interested in,” Macdonald told Surface. A year later, with the opening of their inaugural exhibition “The Grit and the Glamour,” they stayed true to their founding vision. Featuring 21 makers and artists from all over Scotland, the group show celebrates the inherent mess, difficulty, and courage of transcending trends in pursuit of craft. There are no plinths in sight—instead, reclaimed tea crates nod to Leith’s seaport roots and display an assortment of wooden and clay furniture, glass sculpture, wool and silk textiles, and bio-plastic sculpture.

While Bard celebrates what Macdonald calls “interpretations of Scottishness,” neither it nor its debut exhibition are a nationalistic endeavor. Each maker lives and works in the country, but as a group they reflect a diversity of perspectives. Juli Bolaños-Durman’s family of salvaged scientific glass vessels, for example, represents the larger importance of reclamation in her process and what she calls “a simple but important gesture in our throwaway culture.” Jack Brindley’s ochre-hued Haptic Light was inspired by an early Frank Lloyd Wright window design for factories, but brings warmth and ruggedness to the material with the way it appears to be lodged in boulders from the Isle of Skye.

Elsewhere, Marie Bruhat’s Fair Isle wool throws, Frances Priest’s encaustic ceramic tile trivets, and Marc Sweeney’s monolithic pepper bio-resin and ceramic pepper grinder all nod to changing ideas of luxury and Scotland’s erstwhile industries devoted to “making beautiful things for wealthy people,” to quote Sweeney. Now, thanks to endeavors like Bard, those traditions live on and are more accessible than ever.

In Their Own Words: Sweeney, a Loch Lomond–based product designer, reflected on how craft traditions live on today in the exhibition’s catalog. “It was hard labor making luxury goods; from shipyards building yachts to people spinning silk. This region had a skilled working-class workforce,” he said in a conversation with Macdonald. “Most of these industries and skills are long gone. I’m influenced by where I’m based and what came before, but for me, it’s not about preserving heritage, it’s about designing or making in a relevant way for the present and hopefully the future.”

Surface Says: In an industry that largely anonymizes its actual makers, Bard’s vision of slow design feels refreshing.

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On April 5–7, the University of Tulsa will host Sovereign Futures, a symposium organized by writer and visiting curator Allison Glenn to explore themes of Indigenous sovereignty and de-colonialism through the lens of food, land, and histories. The three-day convening will include commissions by artists and conversations with practitioners, curators, and academics. Curatorial advisors Kalyn Fay Barnoski, Yatika Starr Fields, Caleb Gayle, and Rick Lowe hail from these disciplines and will play an active role in guiding the weekend’s programming. Key project sites include performance artist Kalup Linzy’s Queen Rose Art House: an exhibition, residency, and performance space in North Tulsa.

Since its inception in 1979, Milanese gallery Nilufar has been a destination for design enthusiasts from around the world for its array of wares by contemporary and historical design talents. The gallery made waves earlier this year when it launched Open Edition, an in-house line of furniture and décor by of-the-moment luminaries such as Osanna Visconti, Gal Gaon, David/Nicolas, and more.

Until this past week, Americans in search of Open Edition had no other option than a trek to Nilufar’s galleries in Milan. This week, The Future Perfect and Nilufar announced the American design gallery as the sole purveyor of Open Edition in the United States. An 18-piece edit of the line’s 100 works of furniture, lighting, and objects is currently on view at The Future Perfect New York’s parlor level. While each is by a contemporary designer, the boxy sofas, velvet-slub textiles, and geometric lighting channel the more-is-more ethos of the country’s ‘70s and ‘80s-era of design.

Passionate about the craft traditions of her native Colombia, designer Lucia Echavarria has been creating one-of-a-kind, highly intricate handmade clothing and accessories for her label Magnetic Midnight Maison for a decade to reshape how her country’s craft is perceived. She’s now venturing into furniture and artisanal objects with a top-to-bottom transformation of London’s LAMB Gallery. Working in collaboration with 80 artisans across ten Colombian regions, she designed carpets, furniture, lamps, and wall hangings to create a vibrant space that celebrates Colombia’s rich craft techniques and preserves the beauty of artisanal wares.

Our weekly roundup of the internet’s most preposterous headlines, from the outrageous to the outright bizarre.

400-Pound Pig Named “Pork Chop” Removed From West Palm Beach Home After Owner Evicted [WPTV]

Dense “Super Fog” Causes Deadly Car Crashes in Louisiana [Smithsonian]

Crew Aboard a U.S.-Bound Plane Discovered a Missing Window Pane at 13,000 Feet [NPR]

This Pond In Hawaii Has Mysteriously Turned Bubblegum Pink. Is Drought to Blame? [EuroNews]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson Reveals He Toyed With Becoming a Male Stripper While Studying at Columbia: “I Could Do a Full Split” [The Wrap]

Newly Discovered Beetle Named After Beer Company Due to Its Bottle Opener-Shaped Penis [Business Insider]

Last week, heavy hitters from art, fashion, entertainment, and philanthropy came together to celebrate Creative Time’s annual gala. The fundraiser supports Creative Time’s mission to amplify artists’ voices and engage audiences in dynamic public art. The evening honored Creative Time board chair Jon Niedich, artist Rick Lowe, and collective New Red Order. Guests arrived at Skylight Essex Crossing for a cocktail hour followed by a seated dinner that presented a menu inspired by Neidich’s restaurants. The venue then transformed into an after-hours club with a performance by West Dakota.

When was it? Nov. 8

Where was it? Skylight Essex Crossing, New York

Who was there? Jeremy Strong, Julianne Moore, Linda Fargo, Chloë Bass, Mickalene Thomas, Antwaun Sargent, Jill Magid, Michelle Williams, DeVonn Francis, and more.

When: Until Dec. 16

Where: Timothy Hawkinson Gallery, Los Angeles

What: The Diné and Chicana artist explores the concept of home through five large-scale paintings, emphasizing its historical significance and the effort required to secure it. Each depicts the quest for comfort and survival, influenced by the Diné people’s historical journeys from ancestral homelands to the present day and depicting home as not only a physical place, but as a mechanism for survival. Her work celebrates lineage as tools for self-preservation and understanding one’s place in the world.

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Art for Change connects socially conscious art collectors with accomplished contemporary artists and their work. It offers exceptionally high-quality artwork created exclusively for Art for Change at manageable price points. Art for Change donates a percentage of the net proceeds of print or painting purchases to nonprofits to effect positive change in the world.

Surface Says: Art for Change gives socially conscious emerging collectors entry to the world of acquisitions with an emphasis on shared values.

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