Welcome to The Buzz, our monthly roundup of design world news and inspiration for Design Miami’s discerning community of creatives and collectors. Enjoy!

Now showing: The Philadelphia Museum of Art presents Take a Seat: Understanding the Modern Chair, featuring nearly 30 chairs from the Museum’s permanent collection that showcase some of the inventive ways designers have reimagined this familiar piece of furniture over the last fifty years. Many designers have developed original forms through the application of new technologies and manufacturing techniques, ranging from computer-controlled processes to handcrafted production methods; others have drawn inspiration from unconventional materials, such as paper and cardboard or even recycled materials like plastic grocery bags and fabric waste. Highlights include chairs from Moroso’s M'Afrique collection as well as recent works by Jomo Tariku, Cheick Diallo, Mac Collins, Norman Teague, and Stefan Sagmeister. Those works are featured alongside earlier designs by Gaetano Pesce, Ron Arad, Gijs Bakker, and Wendell Castle, among others. On view ’til October 20

In Paris, at the galleries of the Jardins du Palais Royal, Mouvements Modernes presents Sam Baron’s Eternae, an exhibition of flora-inspired objects made in collaboration with Italian master glassmakers. The esteemed French designer worked with multiple artisans using a variety of techniques to create objects as odes to the bewitching, enchanting qualities of nature—which, in moments, seemingly bloom as at dawn or fade at dusk—demonstrating the fragility and power of both flowers and glass. On view June 10-22

Also in Paris, Galerie Maria Wettergren’s new exhibition focuses on Danish glass artist Tora Urup. The Sun The Moon presents Urup’s latest explorations into the roles that color and material play in our perceptions of volume and space—and specifically the visual effects obtained within a series of circular glass sculptures in vibrant colors of thin opaque and thick transparent glass. The resulting works create illusions of seemingly infinite and liquid spaces inside physically restrained volumes. Until September 7

Southern Guild Gallery has just opened three new, highly anticipated solo shows at its Cape Town location. First off, Madoda Fani: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sees the ceramicist re-imagining everyday domestic objects in clay that deconstruct reductive cliches of Black masculinities.  Meanwhile, King Houndekpinkou: Six Prayers features the experimental artist’s latest large-scale ceramic sculptures, blending tradition and ancient spirituality with modern techniques while drawing heavily from Japanese and West African culture. And Adam Birch: Like Something Almost Being Said features the artist’s latest hand-wrought, functional timber sculptures. A passionate environmentalist, Birch sculpts his pieces from exclusively alien tree species and already fallen indigenous wood, and the refined results often belie the arduous, deeply physical process of their making. All three are on view through August 22.

In New York, meanwhile, Demisch Danant’s new show highlights the work of French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance.  For the second consecutive year, the gallery presents a selection of pieces from Made In Situ, the designer’s Paris and Lisbon-based project that advocates for a practice rooted in a given territory, exploring its materials, artisans, craftsmanship, and cultural vernacular. Developed alongside local artisans and craftspeople in each locale, the cross-disciplinary works are composed in an array of materials, including ceramics, wood, bronze, and beeswax. Made In Situ has its origins in the definition of the Latin expression in situ, a direct reference to the capacity of design to act as a vector, reconnecting us with our surroundings. On view through June 29

Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and DAR Cultural Agency kick off the summer season with New Wave, a group exhibition spotlighting future-facing contemporary artists and designers who address global issues by centering local ecosystems and collective experience. Curated by Zineb Seghrouchni, founder of DAR Cultural Agency, the show will feature new, site-specific installations by The Nest, Marga Weimans, Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Ameneh Solati, Yuro Moniz, and Elejandro Martinez—talents who operate between different countries, continents, and cultures while focusing on the local, and who, collectively, highlight the potential of creating new knowledge together.

While the featured talents are multidisciplinary, Seghrouchni tells us, “Intuitively, New Wave became an architectural exhibition, with six stories told as spatial interventions. I like how architecture is a way of thinking to build beyond any convention." On view June 22 - November 3

Now showing: In Brussels, Pierre Marie Giraud presents an exhibition of elegant new works by Yuki Hayama, an artist from Arita, the birthplace of Japanese porcelain. Hayama’s style is rooted in a fascination with mythology, history, and tradition; stories unfold on his bowls, vases, and plates, borne of long hours of painstakingly detailed hand painting. His intricate compositions are applied with a brush, without preliminary drawing or drafting, directly onto the ceramic. The resulting pieces fuse past and present, tradition and innovation. Until June 22 

Who is our world actually designed for? At the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, the exhibition Design for All? Diversity as the Norm takes as its starting point the fact that, despite much progress, society—and design—still have a long way to go when it comes to making our world accessible for all. The show presents an array of contemporary, inclusive design and architecture ranging from speculative works to existing apps, toys, and fashion as well as public space interventions. The exhibition itself was created through a collaborative process that invited dialogue, participation, and a plurality of viewpoints to identify inclusive design strategies, with the aim of serving as a forum where individuals can come together to explore these topics. ’Til October 20

In Chicago, Volume Gallery presents Table Setting, its first solo exhibition with LA-based American artist-designer Matt Paweski. Trained in both carpentry and fabrication, Paweski creates hyper-formal pieces in painted aluminum that exist happily between sculpture and functional design. His evocative forms are at once familiar and strange, calling to mind, in moments, everything from sea creatures to furniture and beyond. “Points of reference and inspiration are finely distilled through the process of making so that the viewer can find many personal touch points but no fixed references,” the artist has said. His latest work delves deep into the form versus function question through a historical dialogue with Austrian designer Dagobert Peche, alluding to specific Wiener Werkstätte works that consider the tension between craftsmanship and mass production, and ornamentation and austerity.  June 7 - August 17

Finally, the brand-new design festival Los Angeles Design Weekend—dubbed “a weekend for misfits and rule breakers”—kicks off this month with a weekend-long series of neighborhood-centric events in Downtown LA and the surrounding Northeast neighborhoods. The grassroots initiative invites visitors to explore the city’s emerging designers and heritage brands alike through activations, exhibitions, and parties in places like DTLA, Silver Lake, Cypress Park, and more. LADW aims to celebrate the city’s up-and-coming and established designers’ contributions to the broader creative community—and highlight the city’s innovative spirit. June 21 - 23