Farrah Sit’s Work — Including Her Best-Selling Serpentine Sconce — Feels Both Effortlessly Current and Like a Prehistoric Artifact

Equilibrium and harmony: They’re difficult to achieve in life and maybe only slightly easier in design. But the search for balance, especially a desire for balance with nature, has lately been driving New York designer Farrah Sit — in a stylistic sense, but also in the way she produces the lighting and furniture for her eponymous line. Sit makes pieces that embody substantial and even existential concerns but wear their heaviness lightly; they’d look really great in your living room but they’re also meant to do more than that. “Part of what we’re trying to do as designers,” she says, “is create awareness between you and your environment.” Her aesthetic has largely hewn to neutral colors and natural materials and a dedication to elegant, mysterious forms ­— like Sit's best-selling Serpentine sconce, which debuted as part of Sight Unseen Offsite in 2020 and is now part of the Sight Unseen Collection. A ceramic wall sconce, Serpentine seems both effortlessly current and like an unearthed artifact — a relatively simple form that wordlessly conveys a whole world of feeling.
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I Expected to Love My First 3Days of Design in Copenhagen. But I Could Never Have Anticipated What Would Make It So Great.

If you can believe it, this was my first year attending 3DaysofDesign in Copenhagen, and I went to the fair, now in its 10th year, armed with absurdly high expectations. I knew that just existing in Copenhagen in early June — using Lime bikes to cycle around, drinking natural wine, eating smørrebrød — would set a good baseline for fun. But after my experience at Salone, which I wrote about here, I felt increasingly desperate for Copenhagen to mean something. I told people I was going because, as a chronicler of design fair culture, I felt compelled to see one that had become such a word-of-mouth success. But on a personal level, it’s like I needed Copenhagen to prove to me that design fairs were still worth attending. As hesitant as I am to say this — lest everyone frantically start planning their show next year in Denmark, which is simply not the right move for everyone — Copenhagen actually exceeded my expectations.
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