Inheriting San Francisco

San Francisco Art Fair Theater stage curated and designed by Anand Sheth

Presented by Dwell

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For the second year in a row, San Francisco–based architect and curator Anand Sheth has been invited to design and curate the SF Art Fair stage. This year’s installation explores the idea of Inheriting San Francisco—how the city’s emerging designers are stepping into stewardship of its creative culture while simultaneously inheriting many of its pressures: displacement, limited resources, and the need to build community infrastructure ourselves. 

The stage is constructed primarily from OSB, sanded down to reveal a surprisingly fluid grain pattern that feels familiar while inviting questioning and discovery. Sheth first developed this material treatment with Sergio of FourQuarter in Richmond while building out his pop-up gallery and concept shop, Storefront Anand Sheth, in the Mission District last year. In that context, OSB expressed the temporary and DIY nature of the space while grounding it authentically within the neighborhood. 

Bringing the material to the Fair allows it to gain additional meaning. OSB references construction and resourcefulness, but it can also evoke the boarded-up storefronts increasingly common in cities like San Francisco. By transforming the material into something refined and intentional, the stage suggests another possibility: inheriting what exists and improving it. 

The stage will be fabricated on site with the AMP build crew, continuing that ethos of resourcefulness and collaboration. Portions of the OSB were reclaimed from the original Storefront build and reintroduced into the project through a new capsule furniture collection created with Chibuzor Darl-Uzu of Untildef Studio, an artist-in-residence at Root Division. The pieces incorporate discarded and reclaimed materials from across San Francisco, including construction lumber, hardwood offcuts, marble, and textiles salvaged from Sheth’s architectural and interior design projects. 

Additional works include sculptural floor lamps debuting at the fair by Damaso Mayer of Estudio Material, constructed from reclaimed fragments of boulders and masonry paired with brushed aluminum. The stage floor will feature Sheth’s Right of Way rug, which launches publicly with Nomadory this year and draws inspiration from the layered textures and pathways of the urban pedestrian experience. 

The environment is completed by a cascading dried-floral installation by Amanda Vidmar Designs and artworks by Root Division artists-in-residence, curated by PJ Policarpio. 

Following the San Francisco edition, the stage installation will travel to AMP fairs in Atlanta and Seattle, where the themes of resourcefulness, displacement, and creative resilience resonate strongly within those cities as well. 

Anand Sheth (Studio Anand Sheth)
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Chibuzor Darl-Uzu (Untildef Studio)
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Chibuzor “Buz” Darl-Uzu is a Bay Area designer, fabricator, and materials-focused artist whose work spans furniture, installation, and public space intervention. With a background in materials science and an MFA in Design from California College of the Arts, he explores how reclaimed and everyday materials can be transformed into objects that invite rest, play, and belonging.

Working through his studio, untildef, Darl-Uzu creates projects that challenge hostile urban design and rethink who public space is for. His practice combines material experimentation, fabrication, and cultural critique, often drawing from informal making, reuse, and urban life in San Francisco and Oakland. His work moves between sculptural furniture, social practice, and experimental design, with an emphasis on care, access, and participation.

Damaso Mayer (Estudio Material)
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Founded in San Francisco CA, Estudio Material is a creative practice led by Mexico City-born artist and designer Damaso Mayer. His work is rooted in a diverse background spanning industrial design, architecture, and landscape architecture. 

​Growing up in a world of contrasts, Damaso lived on a working organic farm run by his mother, where he developed a profound connection to nature’s cycles and processes. At the same time, his father’s metal gasket fabrication facility exposed him to the precision and ingenuity of industrial production.​This unique upbringing shaped Damaso’s creative ethos, fostering a deep appreciation for both the organic and the manufactured.  

His artistic practice is defined by an exploration of often overlooked materials, with a particular fascination for the raw, the found, and the industrial.​With a focus on sustainable practices and material exploration, Estudio Material reimagines conventional design by celebrating the beauty and potential of materials in their most authentic forms.