When we were scouting for people to include in this year’s Dwell 24, our annual celebration of the best emerging designers in the world, we kept encountering strange things: melting Tiffany lamps, rubber furniture, hairy lighting, and other odd objects. Surrealism is having a moment in design, as it has been in art, fashion, and other creative arenas, and now it’s a twisting thread running through the collection of fresh work we’re featuring here.

Some designers channel dreams. Anna Horváth’s rough concrete benches, which nod to de Chirico, could be the setting for a brutalist fantasy or a monolithic nightmare—not surprising, given that she’s currently working beneath crumbling frescoes in an 18th-century building in rural Hungary. (Take a closer look at the cover.) Meanwhile, Copenhagen duo Christian + Jade make a spooky glass wine fountain with an alluring gloss that might make you think twice about partaking—but, you know, everyone else is doing it.

Other designers on this year’s list call back to the 1990s and insist that discarded objects—trash to the uninspired—can possess a radiant quality. They’re not exactly grunge, but the side chairs of L.A. and Melbourne studio BMDO, wrapped in a patchwork of vintage textiles, and the cobbled-together cast-off household items by Ho Chi Minh City’s Ném conjure a spirit of thrift-store alchemy.

Elsewhere in our feature the work feels a bit Freudian. Isabel Rower says one of her ceramic chairs was inspired by toilets, and Isabel Moncada’s version of an antler chandelier sprouts horsehair ponytails from each of its branches—the furry teacup of lighting.

If all of this seems a little esoteric, remember that austere minimalism once looked suspiciously severe, and cohabitating with too many plants might have caused friends to whisper. Even if you’re not ready to jump on the shaggy-lighting trend, I’m confident some aspect of the offbeat will be coming to your living room soon.

More than anything, the designers in this year’s Dwell 24 are attuned to the psychology of materials, particularly in unexpected combinations: what they evoke and what we recall and bring to them, consciously or not. It’s strange furniture for strange times, and against a scrolling sea of easy-to-apprehend styles, they present the promise of meaning in the weirdness—even if you can’t quite put your finger on it.

Dương Gia Hiếu

Dương Gia Hiếu makes lighting and furniture that literally transform trash into treasure. Read More

Sisan Lee

Natural forms juxtapose fabricated metal elements in this Seoul designer’s industrial-meets-Neolithic furniture. Read More

Autumn Casey

Inspired by Tiffany lamps and Pizza Hut pendant lights, the Florida artist shapes fantastical sculptures that give the illusion of being made from stained glass. Read More

AHA Objects

Hungarian designer Anna Horváth’s playful furniture uses reclaimed materials and references historical forms. Read More

Robell Awake

The Atlanta woodworker’s expressive furniture puts a twist on historical forms typically under-represented by the dominant culture. Read More

Rich Aybar

Fashion consulting and Berlin nightlife led the designer to experiment with a largely ignored material in furniture fabrication: rubber. Read More

Evam

Working across continents, Caroline Kable and Aditya Jaimini highlight the diversity of Rajasthani craft through contemporary furniture design. Read More

Heph

Temitope El-shabazz and Damian Okafor’s Lagos firm pivoted from fashion to furniture to push boundaries in Nigerian interior design. Read More

Ellen Pong

From sculptural stools adorned with tentacles to mirrors with magnetic buttons, the New York designer’s ceramic furniture makes the mundane strange—in the best way. Read More

Didi NG Wing Yin

The Hong Kong–born, Helsinki-based artist uses wood in ways that draws focus to its texture. Read More

Isabel Moncada

With her offbeat lighting fixtures made from materials like horsehair, the Mexico designer isn’t afraid to get weird. Read More

Sing Chan

Looking to ancient civilizations for inspiration, the Guangzhou designer approaches furniture making with an almost archeological reverence. Read More

Shell Homage

Cairo designer Rania Elkalla uses food waste to create a biodegradable material that mimics the look of natural marble. Read More

Rejo

After studying architecture in Gaza, the Palestinian designers formed a studio to make furniture that expresses a contemporary vision of Arab culture. Read More

Monica Curiel

The Denver designer creates pieces that capture a moment and act like “the cool girls.” Read More

Leo Kaspar

The Devon, England, artist’s glass sconces, lamps, and candleholders reinvigorate aging traditions for a younger generation. Read More

Josh Egesi

Starting with furniture, the Nigerian designer wants to shape a more sustainable, equitable, and stylish world. Read More

Isabel Rower

Just a few years out of RISD, the New York designer’s ceramic furniture and soft sculptures have made it to galleries and the homes of the A-list. Read More

Cinco X Cinco

Through collaborations with local makers, the Guatemala City design collective endeavors to shed fresh light on their country’s craft traditions. Read More

Christian + Jade

For the Copenhagen duo, design is less about the finished product and more about the storytelling that brings it to life. Read More

BMDO

Where most people see trash, Fletcher Barns and James L. Marshall see potential—and they’ve made repurposing scraps into an art. Read More

Magnetic Midnight Maison

Ancestral craft knowledge is central to the fabrication of Bogotá designer Lucia Echavarría’s objects. Read More

Yann Design Studio

Chengdu designer Yann Pu’s work strikes a balance between poles like handcrafted versus factory-produced, or local scale versus global. Read More

Abreham Brioschi

The Milan designer draws inspiration from his native Ethiopia to create sculptural wooden seating and hand-tufted rugs. Read More

Top photo of designer Rich Aybar by Adrianna Glaviano

Also Appears In

The Dwell 24: Rich Aybar