ART & DESIGN
THE FIRST EVER METAVERSE ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN AWARDS 2023

The MAD Awards 2023 provides a terrific opportunity for planners, brands, and designers to raise their profile and push their unique, unorthodox work. We take a look at 3 metaverse architectural firms you should know about as the emergence of the metaverse continues to infuse every industry, particularly architecture.
- Architects + Engineers Dewan – A multidisciplinary design firm specialising in engineering and architectural designs for the commercial sector.
- Zaha Hadid Architects – ZHA – London-based firm, designing a virtual self-governed city in the metaverse
- Noor Architects – Noor Architects opens up options for experimentation, study, and maybe solutions that can reflect back to the physical world in the future with a virtual architecture studio and “post-architectural” studies.

Overall, the MAD Awards will shine a light on the people who are at the forefront of design in all its manifestations, from the Innovation Awards categories, including Workplace Extension, to the Built and Unbuilt categories, which highlight a variety of projects and products. There will also be unique awards for the most outstanding practitioners, such as Designer of the Future, as well as a division for young creatives dubbed ‘Student of the Year’.

A heterogeneous jury of new media professionals, designers, Web3 and industry specialists will judge the projects. They include:
- Yves Béhar (founder of fuseproject)
- Hagy Belzberg, (founding partner of BA Collective)
- Stanley Felderman, (partner of Felderman Keatinge & Associates)
- Amanda Ferber (founder and CEO of The Architecture Hunter)
- Lorne Sugarman (CEO of Metaverse Group)
- Jinha Lee (cofounder and chief product officer of Spatial.io)
- Avinash Rajagopal, (editor-in-chief of Metropolis)
- Evan Orensten (cofounder and executive editor of Cool Hunting)
- Molly Murphy, (managing director and principal of Gensler New York),
- Tessa Bain, (cofounder of digby).

The finalists will be notified in February, with the awards ceremony taking place in March 2023 in the Spatialo.io metaverse, a community platform that is supporting the event. You can enter here.
ART & DESIGN
MAARTEN DE CEULAER MUTATION FURNITURE SERIES

The furniture is all new. Maarten De Ceulaer’s “Mutation” line is created by arranging spheres of upholstered foam in an aesthetic pattern and finishing the piece with a velvet-like rubber coating then coating to keep it together. The pieces are truly individual as it would be impossible to recreate a single piece exactly. The concept for the design was inspired by the idea of organic sources replicating themselves and cells ballooning in unexpected ways.
In Ceulaer’s concept, the mutation is thought to have been caused by a virus or a nuclear reaction but as we look deeper, we wonder or question what we are looking at a little deeper – is it a piece of furniture, a work of art, or a piece of science? Or perhaps a political statement?
Sofas, chairs (with and without metal legs, with and without armrests), and stools are all part of the “Mutations” collection.
The pieces are available in a variety of bright colours as well as black.
https://www.maartendeceulaer.com/series/mutation-series


ART & DESIGN
BLACK JOY ON THE BASKETBALL COURT HONOURED BY LAKWENA MACIVER’S ‘JUMP PAINTINGS’

London based Lakwena Maciver’s series of ‘Jump Paintings’, can be currently seen at the Vigo Gallery (SW1Y 6BU, London) reflects iconic legends who graced the basketball court.

Her artwork comes alive with electric designs and bold bright colours to represent hope and optimism. London, Paris, Munich, and LA are just some of the locations in which her work has touched to communicate her passionate vision of “redemption, decolonisation, and paradise”. The scale of her reach over the past years has also included the Tate, Somerset House, Southbank Centre and Covent Garden, as well as The NY Bowery.

Her statement from the gallery explains how she likes the notion of the basketball court “as a platform or a stage where the players become almost like superheroes… The heights that they soar to… it’s like they are flying, somehow able to rise above the limitations of this world.” She goes on to share: “This is especially poignant for me given that basketball is indisputably dominated by African Americans, and their style of play has shaped the game.
Going back to her roots, Maciver’s Ugandan father, who spent the formative years of her child in East Africa, became engrossed by basketball’s politicisation. For example, she explains: how “The ‘slam-dunk’ for instance, one of basketball’s great crowd-pleasers, could be seen as a physical manifestation of Black power. So much so that it was banned in 1967 for ten years, coincidentally after a year of Lew Alcindor’s domination of the game,” she explains. “I see these paintings as an opportunity to celebrate black power, joy, and self-expression.”
You can explore the recurring motifs that appear in her work in person, as the ‘Jump Paintings’ can be viewed at Vigo Gallery now until February 28th 2022.
Instagram @lawkena
ART & DESIGN
KAWS “FAMILY” COLLECTION

On the 14th of February Valentine’s Day at 12 pm EST, KAWS is releasing their newest collection FAMILY. Hinting at it the family collection when the artist created a snow-like sculpture of a child Companion sitting on its parent-figures lap during the KAWS:HOLIDAY tour at Changbai Mountain.

KAWS FAMILY appears to feature two different sizes of KAWS BFF Companions, including a Companion holding a toy-sized Chum Michelin Man, a child-sized Chum Micheline Man, as well as a 13.5 foot BFF. KAWS announces this on their Instagram, revealing a Companion in the classic gray look, while another BFF and Chum Michelin Man are in neon Pink. All together these grouped together and in various sizes are what make KAWS FAMILY.
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