Whether seen from the craggy mountain landscapes of New Zealand or the vast, arid expanses of the Atacama Desert, the Milky Way is a brilliant band of light that glitters in the night sky above every spot on Earth. A photo contest devoted to our galaxy celebrates the diverse, dazzling …...Read More

In 18th- and 19th-century London, the term mudlark was coined to describe someone who scavenged river banks for valuable items. Today, metal detectors aid in the continuing pastime—which now requires a permit—and every once in a while, a modern-day mudlark dredges up a striking discovery. Ten years ago, for type …...Read More

In the late aughts, Richard Haining began salvaging leftover wood. While working for a set design company, he realized that the sizable waste generated was also an untapped opportunity for his personal projects. “What I did not have in the way of disposable income, I did have in the way …...Read More

Eléonore Joulin casts humble foods in a fresh light with her gastronomic collection of ceramic goods. From her studio in Brussels, the artist layers crinkled cabbage leaves into a vegetal dwelling and twists a long sausage into a sculptural, worm-like shape. She outfits many forms with a bulb and cord, …...Read More

In 1802, Italian sculptor Antonio Canova produced a marble sculpture known as “Venus Italica,” notably commissioned by Napoléon Bonaparte and intended to replace another Venus statue at the Louvre in Paris. Among numerous other historic statues and artifacts at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva, the “Venus Italica” …...Read More

Amidst the cobblestone streets of Chinatown in Prato, Italy, typography has become a bridge between worlds. Beatrice Murphy, a student in the Master’s Course in Graphic Design at Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) Firenze, developed her thesis project by examining and dissecting the bilingual signage of Prato’s Chinatown. Her project …...Read More

Textile design and the visual language of quilting shine through in Sarah Helen More’s paintings. Her kaleidoscopic works pair various geometric and botanical motifs in patchworks of flat graphic color. Emitting a joyful, meditative energy, the vivid compositions directly tie to the artist’s childhood memories and experiences. Growing up in …...Read More

The Taipei City-based studio Pan Pan Hua is preserving local heritage by recreating the historic details unique to the region’s built environment. “Through years of research, we have found that the mosaic tile, once thriving in Taiwan, ceased production nearly half a century ago. Neither tile factories nor construction material …...Read More

In 1887, an African-American man named Matthew Henson was hired by U.S. Navy engineer Robert Peary to accompany a team of explorers to be the first to navigate to the Geographic North Pole. On April 6, 1909, after several failed attempts, Henson was the first to arrive with the help …...Read More

Lush with material textures, Stefaan De Croock’s portraits have no identifying attributes. The Belgian artist (previously) puzzles together fragments of wood or marble into figures with distinctive postures and presences but no facial features. Anonymity can lend itself to universality, De Croock believes, and he strives to pinpoint the experiences …...Read More