Close your eyes and imagine a volcanic island—or a collection of nine—smack in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean marooned between North America and Portugal. What comes to mind? An ambitious music and art festival organized by friends from Porto may likely rank at the tail’s end, but that precisely explains Tremor’s allure.

Taking place in March each year, Tremor was born in 2013 by a collective of friends and creators of the Lovers & Lollypops record label—Joaquim Durães, Luis Banrezes, and Márcio Laranejeira—who were inspired by the island’s psychedelic landscapes, underutilized venues, and culture-hungry residents to create a music festival that has the ability to transcend and elevate all who come to experience it. In a world of contrived, mass-scale festivals, Tremor is rewriting the script of how music, art, and nature can amalgamate to draw new audiences to otherwise culturally uncharted terrain.

For many young creatives living in Lisbon and Porto, the Azores was a long stretch of a place to visit, despite being a Portuguese territory. Flights to and from the archipelago’s main and largest island, São Miguel, were infrequent and expensive, thus restricting most of the domestic population from its serene lifestyle. Fueled by investments in infrastructure, new flight routes, and economic growth measures enacted by the local government, the festival founders found all the right reasons to create a remarkable experience that they too would enjoy.

Surface contributor Ross Belfer first visited Azores in 2014, during Tremor’s early years, and was left in a dizzying spell ever since. Ahead of this year’s edition, taking place March 19–23, he spoke with Durães to get a sense of the festival and its importance as a cultural movement in the western hemisphere.

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In 2022, Worthless Studios debuted its Bushwick space with “1-800 Happy Birthday,” an immersive show created from Mohammad Gorjestani’s digital voicemail project dedicated to honoring the lives of Black and Latino people killed by police. Generous support from the Mellon Foundation has allowed Worthless Studios to partner with Gorjestani’s production company Even/Odd and Campaign Zero to employ a curatorial fellow to work closely with surviving family members of those celebrated in “1-800 Happy Birthday” for the project’s next phase.

Interested in applying or know someone who might be?

Forget a clean slate—when NAAW Studio was commissioned to transform a Soviet-era workers’ housing block in Almaty into a Scandi-inspired café and bakery, they brought the 1953 building’s original ornamental features to the fore. The female-founded studio reckoned with the site’s Stalinist architectural heritage but added poise and whimsy to the mix, eschewing romanticism. Dilapidated plasterwork covered during a previous renovation was meticulously restored and contrasts the building’s stripped-back concrete skeleton, whose light gray hues also appear on terrazzo flooring. The muted palette provided wiggle room to bring in custom furnishings as well as pieces by Scandi brands &Tradition, Hay, and Normann Copenhagen with pops of bold royal blue and dark orange, colors that also line a vertigo-inducing bathroom corridor.

It all weaves a spatial tapestry thanks to Yourta’s hand-made cushions evoking traditional Kazakh yurts, cabinets made by local craftsmen using regionally sourced Karagach wood, and restored angular front windows outfitted with cozy nook seating that drench the dining room with sunlight. As diners enjoy their confections—the cafe’s name, Fika, refers to the Swedish tradition of taking a break to enjoy coffee and a pastry—they can also embark on an art history lesson of Kazakhstan’s largest city. The Almaty Museum donated original photographs of the building’s construction for the walls; NAAW painstakingly recreated a drawing of the building’s facade that was lost in the archives. The main focal point, though, is a dusky canvas by local painter Nurbol Nurakhmet that depicts an Almaty landmark under a moonlit sky.

For more than 10 years, Dr. Anastasia Lesjak has presided over the product design studio 13&9, which she co-founded with her husband Martin and which also works collaboratively with their interiors firm Innocad. Through both, Anastasia pursues a science-driven approach to creative problem solving with human well-being top of mind for commissions ranging from fashion, jewelry, commercial lighting and furniture, and more.

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

Loro Piana’s $9,000 Sweaters Rely on Unpaid Farmers in Peru [Business of Fashion]

Good Thing That Kobe Bryant Is Getting Three Statues. The First One Has Typos [LA Times]

Google’s Newest Office Has AI Designers Toiling in a Wi-Fi Desert [Reuters]

Nebraska Woman Accused of Using Pump Glitch to Get $27,000 Worth of Gas [HuffPost]

Wisconsin Man Named “Deez-Nuts” Arrested Following Disturbance [Complex]

When: Until May 11

Where: Claire Oliver Gallery, New York

What: Opening today at the gallery’s Central Harlem brownstone, “Teetering on the Brink” marks the New York debuts of Sami Tsang, Ebony Russell, and Suyao Tian. Through a combination of ceramics, sculpture, and watercolors, respectively, the three artists navigate a web of lasting complexities rooted in a ruthlessly observant interrogation of identity and childhood. Behind ornate ceramic tiaras that appear made out of fondant, floral still life watercolor paintings, and whimsical figurative sculptures are the artists’ unflinchingly honest narratives.

Out this spring from the indie Brooklyn publisher, Emma Kohlmann’s Watercolors documents hundreds of paintings made within ten years of her career. With her background in zine-making and the punk music scene, her work and Watercolors itself is imbued with a perspective that often eludes run-of-the-mill art books. Kohlmann’s is anything but. From $60

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Dedon transforms outdoor spaces into places with unique energy. Each piece of handcrafted furniture is an invitation to experience the joy of life under open skies. Pioneering since 1990, Dedon innovates continuously to offer products of unrivaled quality, responsibility, and desirability to customers in more than 100 countries on six continents.

Surface Says: Dedon’s architectural, hand-woven outdoor furniture wins our heart for its sense of whimsy. From its suspended loungers inspired by birds’ nests to the MBRACE Collection’s intricate weave to the geometric forms of the CIRQL line, the brand’s distinctive lens stands out.

A mysterious ten-foot metal monolith was spotted on a remote hill in Wales.

Ryan Raftery portrays prominent women in media—including Anna Wintour.

The world’s first museum dedicated to video game art will soon open in Japan.

This enterprising Lagos gallery is helping children make a living from their art.