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12.20.21

Editor's Note

See you in 2022!

Today marks the last day of our 2021 coverage, as we hunker down for another COVID winter and try to get some relaxation in before starting fresh in the new year. We'll be leaving you, as in previous years, with a review of our top stories from the past 12 months, ICYMI. What can we learn from the fact that these 8 stories were so popular? Here are our totally subjective speculations.
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12.23.20

Editor's Note

Sight Unseen’s 10 Most-Read Stories of 2020

Poor, sweet, prescient us. Remember back in early February when we said, "Hey isn't it weird how everything suddenly looks like a cave you'd like to escape into and shut out the world?" Little did we know that we'd all be spending the rest of the year in the equivalent of an isolation tank. So yeah — no surprise that our most-read story of 2020 was the equivalent of us shutting the bunker doors and saying "See you next year!"
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12.22.20

Editor's Note

Sight Unseen’s 10 Most Popular Instagrams of 2020

We’ll be offline from Christmas to New Year's, but before we leave, we wanted to honor our annual tradition of looking back at the year that was. 2020, of course, was an unequivocal tragedy, and our list of top 10 Instagrams began with two fitting images: a giant tongue stuck out at the world, and a soft, comforting hole to crawl into.
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10.12.20

Editor's Note

From Their Artfully Curated Brooklyn Design Shop, Guest Editors Lichen NYC Are Helping to Democratize Design

By definition, “lichen” is a moss composed of two or sometimes many organisms operating in a symbiotic relationship with one another. In 2017, we opened the doors to Lichen NYC, our take on accessible furniture — both vintage and contemporary — settled harmoniously into a single space, with an aim to represent that spirit of symbiosis and inclusion in the design community. Our goal, in first one store, and now another, is to push design forward by empowering individuals with knowledge of past designs and helping them make sense of how to incorporate those pieces into current living scenarios
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10.05.20

Editor's Note

Guest Editor Fiorella Valdesolo on Mushrooms and the Interconnectedness of All Things

Today, meet Fiorella Valdesolo, a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and consultant who is probably best known for her role as co-founder and editor-in-chief of the food magazine Gather Journal (whose erstwhile print issues we still hoard). All of the stories we’ll be posting between now and Friday have been either written or chosen by Fiorella; they center around the interconnectedness of all things — and, in a way, why we need each other now more than ever.
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09.28.20

Editor's Note

Guest Editor Yoko Choy Explores the Work in Progress That is Chinese Design

Chinese design is still finding its way and is too diverse to be captured in a neat single identity. So while the global community may be eager to create a brand for this emerging body of work, defining it is still a work in progress. In the 15 years I’ve been working as a design journalist, I’ve been asked constantly, “What is Chinese Design”? I, too, have been asking myself that same question. And I feel that now I’m finally seeing an answer (or answers) and am proud to share my discoveries, some of which formed the basis for my guest-editor curation this week.
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09.21.20

Editor's Note

Guest Editor Robert Sukrachand Wants Us To Embrace the World’s Diverse Design Perspectives

As part of our 2020 Guest Editors series, we've asked each editor to write a personal essay that introduces themselves and the ideas and inspirations behind their week of content on Sight Unseen. Today, meet Robert Sukrachand, a New York furniture designer and American Design Hot List alum. "I’ve aimed to stop trafficking in the binary language that separates 'craft' from 'design,' or 'primitive' from 'modern,'" he writes. "The rigidity embodied in these distinctions is a tool that reinforces colonial hierarchies."
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06.01.20

Editor's Note

Black Lives Matter — A Week of Acknowledgement on Sight Unseen

We stand with BIPOC and call for justice for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless others whose deaths are part of a long history of violence against black bodies. Right now, we are reading, listening to, and learning from voices that matter more than ours right now, so we'll be pausing our activities here and on our social media channels all week, June 1-5, to ensure that those voices can be heard.
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