People have always looked to the skies for answers, whether they had climatic, agricultural, or existential questions. It makes sense then, that we turn to the skies again while living in such unpredictable times. The skies in Miami during its annual art week this year gave us more perplexing prompts than answers.

The theme of this year’s Design Miami is “Blue Sky,” a theme by curatorial director Glen Anderson that would tie together innovation and optimism through the design on view at the fair’s twentieth edition. It makes sense then, that one of the first works to experience when entering the fair is Paradise, Mathieu Lehanneur’s tall wooden cabinet that holds a light panel which mimics the endless bright blue of a perfectly cloudless day. Commissioned by the fair, Paradise is a reliable source for getting a dose of optimism, no matter the climate around it—a beckoning screen alternative for both doom scrolling and seasonal affective disorder.

New to the fair is Paris- and London-based Theoreme Editions, where the studio that collaborates with contemporary designers, craftspeople, and artisans presented an ethereal living room. Co-founder David Giroire described the process as, “We invite emerging designers to make objects or a piece of furniture. We give them carte blanche to do what they want; we just ask for something monolithic, sculptural, and minimal.” In their sitting room in soothing hues of pale pink, moss green, and surfaces in smooth marble and aluminium, POOL’s cloudlike SISTEMA modular sofa encircled the booth, which was lit up by a series of walled mirror works by Emmanuelle Simon. Each round mirror was made of plaster and lined with white gold leaf, resembling a recess in the wall and reflecting an appearance of floating in pristine white light–the kind that shines at noon on a cloudless day.

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In what felt like a playground hideaway on the forest floor, the estate of JB Blunk (1926–2002), an artist who was known for his large organic forms in wood and clay, presented a booth-sized curio of his smaller works, including ceramic tiles and plates, jewelry, coral, hand-formed cutlery, and stunning purses made from whole seashells. The presentation is by Blunk Space Point Reyes Station California artist JB Blunk (1926–2002), a gallery initiated by his estate and a platform for both contemporary and historical design in the context of Blunk’s greatest work of art, his handmade house in Inverness, California.

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No other project opened itself up to the whims of the sky this year more than Formafantasma’s Banquet of Nature, an evening under Miami’s uncharacteristically blustery night skies. The Milan studio of Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, known for their work designing spaces for Salon del Mobile, the Vitra Design Museum, and the Venice Biennale, embarked on a long-term project in champagne maker Maison Perrier-Jouët’s regenerative agriculture. Perching delicate clay totems throughout the fields in an installation titled Cohabitare, the objects add to the vineyard’s ecosystem and protecting its biodiversity, adding dwellings for visiting or essential organisms, both human and non-human, in vessels made from the earth. Banquet of Nature is an extension of this project, where collaborators include Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire creating dishes based on hyper-regional ingredients, such as truffles from Alba, as well as acoustic artist David Monacchi, who created the eco-acoustic work Oecanthus from field recordings at the vineyard this summer.

“We thought it was important to involve David [Monacchi] in this project because he gives us not only scientific data, but a sensitive understanding of things. We were also looking for extremely light ways of re-creating an environment,” says Simone Farresin from Formafantasma of the studio’s first outdoor project. “Physically light—we didn’t want a big infrastructure of shipments, for instance, to present the work. So, to work with sounds or smells, or other senses beyond the visual, we think it’s extremely timely to do so, especially since we live in a visual overload of information.” Given the moody, windy skies of the week, the nighttime clouds parted enough to see a bright, shining star outshining all of the others. Everyone stopped mid-conversation to look up together.  Rumor in the crowd was that we were seeing Jupiter.
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