'The Houses Are Haunted by White Night-Gowns' by The Future Perfect is an exhibition whose very name invites exploration. Satellite to the 12th instalment of FOG Design+Art in San Francisco (until 25 January 2026), the show's title is taken from a Wallace Stevens poem critical of the conformity and diminishing imagination of modern life.
Curators Homan Rajai and Elena Dendiberia of local Studio Ahead gave 13 designers carte blanche to produce unique bowls and then displayed each vessel on a stacked assemblage of credenzas, armoires and side tables selected from the collections of Berkeley-based Scandinavian retailer Mid Century Møbler (1940s-1970s) and San Francisco's C. Mariani Antiques (17th-19th centuries).
In an era of digital shopping, virtual socialising and hyper-curation, these accumulations of furniture and objects recall the pre-internet days of IRL antique hunting and thrifting, which used to involve interacting with design stories and each other. It's a context that reminds us that we can get offline and still find community and creativity.
Studio Ahead for The Future Perfect: Scandinavian design and contemporary vessels
Each bowl's design is as distinctive as it is distinctively displayed. Tucked into a sculpted Danish sideboard, offset stripes reminiscent of a Bauhaus tapestry bedazzle a ceramic vessel by Cody Hoyt. Anna Karlin's centrepiece, atop an inlaid chest of drawers, has a knotted, blown-glass foot. John Hogan's thick vase, tattooed with dots and smudges, rests on an old sewing cabinet with a notions drawer woven from wicker.
'Bowls are deceptively simple,' says TFP founder David Alhadeff, who runs three other galleries in Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Miami. 'Their function, scale and history are well understood, which makes even the smallest formal decisions feel meaningful. Innovation often comes from deep engagement with familiar forms rather than from novelty.'
But beyond the bowls, the show is a collage of design, art and craft, historical eras and aesthetics, materials and artisanal techniques. The result encourages exploration with eyes and hands: touching finely worked, lived-on surfaces, pulling handles, sliding doors. The new and old frame each other. Historical layers give the show texture, inducing curiosity in a room already fully visible from the street.
Collaging, collecting and collaborating are the studio's superpowers. Ahead's work tends to draw other creatives, creative brands and created objects into itself whether that means partnering with an antiques dealer or the artist Jeffrey Sincich, who designed the mix of signage-inspired vinyl lettering announcing the show on the shop's broad storefront.
This way of working reminds us that curators are always part of a team that generates important context for design ideas. 'Context is central to how we think at The Future Perfect,' Alhadeff explains. 'The bowls weren’t meant to be isolated objects, but part of a layered, lived-in environment that resists a single reading. It echoes the way meaning accumulates through proximity, history and use.'
So, as the show asks: are we becoming less intrepid and less imaginative in the crush of cookies and caches, losing our ability to get inspired and engage with others offline? Events like those taking place this week suggest that the answer is up to us. 'I think the algorithm is messing with our universal algorithm,' Rajai says. 'When you find something interesting, dive into it. Go out and have the adventure. Connect with the people around you. It’s more real and more fascinating than anything you can possibly find by scrolling.'