Long before Facebook became Meta and the much-touted metaverse largely failed to live up to the hype sown around it, Pokémon Go took the nascent world of augmented reality (AR) by storm. From New Zealand to New York, youths and young adults were incentivized to get out and explore their surroundings and be more attuned to spatial nuances. Now, the nonprofit Kinfolk Foundation is leveraging Niantic Lightship—the same location tech powering Pokémon Go—to create the Signature Series, a group of digital monuments to Black culture and identity throughout New York by artists Derrick Adams, Hank Willis Thomas, Pamela Council, and Tourmaline.

Kinfolk has already begun making a mark on New York’s virtual landscape. As part of MoMA’s exploratory “Architecture Now: New York, New Publics” exhibition on the future of the city’s public architecture, its co-founders Glenn Cantave, Idris Brewster, and Micah Milner proposed replacing Columbus Circle’s monument of Christopher Columbus with a statue of abolitionist Haitian revolutionary general Toussaint Louverture. The concept, which lives on as a rendering in the MoMA collection, was born out of a proposal to replace standing monuments to slaveholders and to contest other Eurocentric historical narratives in public architecture. Hundreds of such monuments are accessible from the Kinfolk app, but the new Signature Series marks the organization’s first artist commissions.

Starting today, users can download the Kinfolk app to discover each commission. Adams pays tribute to Green Book creators Alma and Victor Hugo Green, who created the segregation-era guidebook for Black travelers in New York City. Thomas has created a 50-foot-tall afro pick, a digitized version of his large-scale sculpture All Power to the People. Council, similarly, has digitized Fountains for Black Joy, A Fountain for Survivors, a pandemic-era sculpture made of 40,000 acrylic nails and installed in Times Square. Tourmaline’s Alien Superstar resurfaces the story of Mary Jones, one of the earliest recorded American trans women at the site of the SoHo brothel where she lived and worked in the early 19th century.

Surface spoke with Council and Tourmaline about their artworks and New York’s historical canon.

Have a news story our readers need to see? Submit it here.

Reach the design world every morning. Find out more about advertising in the Design Dispatch.

Talea has amassed an avid following for its sour and fruit-forward beers, but it also carved an inclusive niche in New York’s male-dominated taproom culture as the city’s first female- and veteran-owned production brewery. With two bustling locations in Williamsburg and Cobble Hill whose colorful interiors lighten the mood, owners LeAnn Darland and Tara Hankinson set their sights on further growth in Manhattan. Their third outpost, a pastel-hued watering hole located on historic Christopher Street in the West Village, is firmly rooted in the neighborhood’s lore and rivals its predecessors in colorful ambience thanks to a calming scheme by local firm Alda Ly Architecture.

A café by day and bar by night, the taproom is awash in a palette of saffron, mauve, and pistachio greens. Its open seating area combines classic saloon elements (exposed brick, decorative molding) with modern touches (mango tiling, quartz countertops). Past the bar are private digs: the Revolution Room, a gathering spot for larger groups, and the Snug, a secret back room and the subtle jewel. They nod to spaces that were once designated secret areas in speakeasies for women to gather and organize. Those women may appear in the restrooms, whose walls are adorned with images of local notables and gender activists. The project was intoxicating enough for Alda Ly to return for a second round, this time with the brewery’s soon-to-open fourth location near Bryant Park.

Being born into a restlessly creative family of sculptors, painters, architects, filmmakers, and writers in Kenya imparted Lana Trzebinski the confidence to explore creating in different mediums. After designing clothing collections in Bali and experimenting with recycled brass jewelry at home, the Nairobi-based talent turned her attention to ceramic vessels meticulously sculpted from African rich red clay that reflect nature’s sacred forms and patterns. Twenty currently feature in an online exhibition at de PURY, showcasing how she tempers the emotional act of creating with precision and unpredictability to craft one-of-a-kind works rich in meaning.

This month, an intimate group of design-industry players gathered at Tiwa Select’s new Tribeca gallery to toast the launch of Fyrn’s Keyhole Collection, the Mission-based design and build company’s first dining table and bench. To celebrate the introductions, Fyrn brought the best of California craft to the East Coast with a meal by Chef Lee Desrosiers, wine by Matthiason, and tableware by Heath Ceramics. The dinner was served family style and highlighted West Coast ingredients flown in for the occasion.

When was it? Nov. 8

Where was it? Tiwa Select, New York

Who was there? Alex Tieghi-Walker, Jean Lin, Mark Grattan, Peter Staples, Oliver Haslegrave, Ghislaine Viñas, Jordy Murray, and more.

When: Until Dec. 31

Where: San Carlo Cremona, Italy

What: The American sculptor’s latest exhibition brings her work to a deconsecrated church in San Carlo. Scaffolding stands in for the architecture of a modern home and delineates spaces displaying surreal furniture. A vanity is done up in what appears to be ruffled panniers; elsewhere, her interpretation of a floor lamp recalls Steampunk Victoriana. The show is also the site of her second video work, Reflects as one., which plays out on monitors that seem to harken to Space Age retro-futurism.

What is a getaway really worth without a keepsake to remember it by? With boutique hotels in Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, and Providence, ASH has made its name for cultivating a cinematic sense of place in charming locales. In time for festive season, the design firm and hotelier has released a transportive collection of heirloom-quality keepsakes one might be inclined to pocket from a dinner table. Highlights include lifelike sardine cutlery rests designed to spare table linens from stains, a shimmering moiré ribbon wine tie, and delightfully delicate sterling silver caviar spoons and oyster forks. From $28.

The Shah Garg Collection features works by 80 women artists from the past eight decades, including Rina Banerjee, Cecily Brown, Judy Chicago, Charline von Heyl, Jacqueline Humphries, Joan Semmel, and more. Curated by Cecilia Alemani, “Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection” marks the first public viewing of a groundbreaking body of work by women collected by Komal Shah and her husband Gaurav Garg.

Surface Says: The debut exhibition of the groundbreaking collection establishes invaluable takeaways, like historical impact and significant breakthroughs across the careers of the collection’s intergenerational roster of women artists.

Some experts think psychedelics may be the future of eating disorder treatment.

Salvador Dalí’s eccentric Portlligat home features in a new Apartamento book.

Critics ponder if Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is a good place to show art.

Embark on a visual journey through Japan’s dying art of cormorant fishing.