(Above: J. Lohmann’s "Curious Creatures." Photo by Yasmin Spiro)

The exhibitors at the 2022 edition of Design Miami—curated around the theme, "The Golden Age: Looking to the Future" led by curatorial director Maria Cristina Didero—shared a vision that’s retro, haptic, and chromatic. Jetsons and Teletubbies meets craft-market and maker fair. From super saturated colors to nature-based design, hairy, fibrous textures, and ceramic forms were heavily featured, along with works that were craft based while still embracing technology and innovation. Here we share some of our favorite exhibits from this year.

This year’s Best Gallery presentation awarded by the fair was shared by Sarah Myerscough Gallery out of London, and New York-based Magen H Gallery. The Sarah Myerscough Gallery showcased innovative art and design hybrid works that seamlessly integrated technology and new processes with hand-crafted and organic designs. For Miami their display, "Material Shores," was connected to the natural world with a palette of gold and sand, but also very much about material, with grass, willow, sisal, and recycled wood. Magen H Gallery showcased iconic mid-century designs by Hervé Baley, Pierre Chapo, Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Pierre Sabaiter, Philolaos Tloupas, Dominique Zimbacca, as well as modern designs by Studio Giancarlo Valle and Natasha Dakhli.

Tuleste Factory out of New York curated their captivating retro-futurist space around Yves Klein’s blue, with most of the tables, chairs and art objects formed from various shades of translucent blue resin—with gallerist hair to match—pointing to that horizon line where sea meets sky. Earning it Design Miami’s “Best Curio,” it featured works by Ian Alistair Cochran, Quincy Ellis, Yonathan Moore, and Julia Tonconogy.

The decade old Design Gallery, Southern Guild out of Cape Town, South Africa, titled their exhibit "Inkundla," presenting an imagined domestic environment. The eclectic mix of hand-crafted furniture, objects, and vessels reminiscent of sea eggs, caves, and anemones were grounded in a sense of materiality and spirituality.

Kohler WasteLAB's modern hammam, "Transcendence," was envisioned by Lebanese designer Nada Debs who created a moment of meditative calm in the midst of the visually intense displays. Working with Maria Cristina Didero, Debs created the hammam (a place to cleanse oneself physically and spiritually) in partnership with Kohler’s WasteLab, utilizing handcrafted tile made from reclaimed waste materials. If you didn’t make it to Miami you can visit the exhibit virtually through their site.

Urban Umbrella’s art and display activation in partnership with Jason Jacques gallery greeted attendees at the fair with its multi-level white sidewalk scaffolding (seen across New York City) populated with Finnish sculptor Kim Simonsson’s "Moss People." The vibrant green ceramic and flocked, diminutive figures suggestive of future fairy tales.

With an eye-popping display of ceramic vessels and forms, J. Lohmann’s "Curious Creatures" showcase felt both space-age and under-the-sea, set against a super saturated deep green environment. Featuring wonderous animalistic forms by Ahryun Lee and Toni Losey, the display seemed to encapsulate the curatorial theme for the fair, a future that we all need now—fun, experimental, and out of this world.