Up In Smoke: Incense Exhibition for NYCXDESIGN 2026

As a platform for contemporary design, our inbox has become an informal archive of proposals from students, artists, and designers. Among the most frequent submissions are incense burners—objects that continue to captivate because of their openness as a design typology. At its most basic, an incense burner need only hold a stick or other form of incense. Beyond that simple requirement, the possibilities are nearly endless.

Up in Smoke brought together a selection of incense burners submitted to Lichen from emerging and established designers. The exhibition highlights the breadth of approaches that can emerge from a single function, presenting works that range from sculptural and experimental to utilitarian and everyday. Collectively, these objects demonstrated how constraint can become a catalyst for invention, and how even the most modest typologies can serve as a platform for material exploration, personal expression, and formal investigation.

By exhibiting these submissions, we created a space for dialogue around process, authorship, and the role of small objects within contemporary design practice.

- A selection of works from the exhibition were made available through our showrooms and online store.