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GRAIN
This Week From The Editor

Grain begins with sustenance; a single seed of rice holding nourishment, cycles and ritual, carried across fields and kitchens, into livelihood and memory. But grain is also direction and rhythm; the line running through wood, the soil that carries fertility, the dot or stroke that builds a language. To notice it is to look closely at what resists smoothness, at the smallest unit which, when multiplied, shapes entire worlds.

Lines Within Lines

This week's stories remind us of that attention. In our interview with Spanish artist Asunción Molinos Gordo, whose survey exhibition is currently on view in Dubai, she draws from farming communities, presenting their age-old knowledge systems as living tools for survival. Soil, water and harvest, the basic grains of subsistence, become her art's material, showing how rural life is inseparable from global futures. Grain also resides in type. The book 'Graphic Languages', edited by Oliver Häusle, compiles visual communication styles as well as writing systems from the world over, where a single accent or

diacritical sign may alter meaning entirely. Each mark carries the weight of cultural identity, reminding us that letters are alive with history. Architecture, too, finds its grain. In a 600-year-old Chinese village, TEAM_BLDG sliced into an incongruous residence, splitting it vertically into four volumes. Each careful incision recalibrated the structure to match the fragmented grain of its locale, giving form to The Quartet, a rural art museum. And in a dialogue, grain takes the form of memory. Gaurav Ogale and Tess Joseph trace how archives and personal stories surface as threads of attention and empathy, where creative and communal cultures perform with and as care.

Grain, whether a seed of rice, a stroke of type or a fragment of memory, is what binds the larger picture. Which makes one wonder: could the larger story, the one we often overlook, be hidden in the smallest grain?

Aarthi Mohan

Tess Joseph and Gaurav Ogale on 'Culture As/ Of Care' at ADFF:STIR Mumbai 2025
Tess Joseph and Gaurav Ogale on 'Culture As/ Of Care' at ADFF:STIR Mumbai 2025
See See

Songzhuang Z Museum: A Quartet of tiered terraces and a colour-shifting woven skin

08 MIN READ    Read More

Think

Making writing forms and forms of writing intelligible with Graphic Languages

08 MIN READ    Read More

Think
Inspire Inspire

Spanish artist Asunción Molinos Gordo looks to the past to interpret the future

10 MIN READ    Read More

Reflect

COLLECTIBLE 2025

Date

4 – 7 Sept, 2025

LOCATION

New York, USA

COLLECTIBLE 2025

Known for its experimental spirit and curatorial rigour, the leading international fair for contemporary collectible design returns with its most ambitious US showcase yet. COLLECTIBLE New York 2025 will unite galleries, studios and design collectives at the intersection of creativity and craftsmanship. The fair features a dynamic program of panels and cultural experiences, alongside distinct sections including Main, New Garde, Vignette and Curated, encompassing staged contemporary designs, emerging galleries and collectives, and more.

Learn More
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NEWS

Pietro Franceschini moulds rattan into the fluid and minimalist forms of Rotella

Pietro Franceschini moulds rattan into the fluid and minimalist forms of Rotella

02 MIN READ     Read More

Separator

Pièces à vivre turns everyday rituals into poetic encounters at Galleria Continua

Pièces à vivre turns everyday rituals into poetic encounters at Galleria Continua

02 MIN READ     Read More

The shape of memory

Negotiating visibility in Chan Hau Chun's 'Map of Traces'.

08 MIN READ

Avani Tandon Vieira

The shape of memory

The Hong Kong artist's moving image work in her debut show at the Empty Gallery examines loss and persistence in a fragmented urban landscape.

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