Here are 15 of LensCulture’s most popular highlights from 2023 — a mix of new discoveries, photobook reviews, interviews, essays, exhibitions and visual stories.

Part functional walkway and part dramatic sculpture, an outdoor staircase by Alex Chinneck unfurls into individual metallic ribbons as it climbs a brick building in Brighton. The latest work by the British artist, titled “A Spring in Your Step,” is made of galvanized steel and features a base with slatted rungs that gradually unwind into a trio of strips splaying outward over Circus Square. Chinneck is known for his surreal architectural interventions—these include melting facades, a condemned building that unzips, and twisting red post boxes—that upend ubiquitous designs in favor of bizarre counterparts. More

 Illustrator Phoebe Wahl and animator Andrea Love teamed up to gift us with a delightful stop-motion short full of cozy felted sweaters, wooly swirls of steam puffing from teacups, and (too much) snow just in time for the holidays. The whimsical animation is the music video for “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,” a duet between Ingrid Michaelson and Zooey Deschanel, that tells the sweet story of Bunny, Rabbit, and their needle-felted friends as they prepare for the holidays. More

In the second edition of “Arrivals,” Wesley Verhoeve introduces us to Tariq Tarey’s latest project; a beautiful portrait series of the Fulani community of his home state of Ohio.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. will lift travel restrictions to eight southern African countries on New Year's Eve, the White House announced Friday. The restrictions, imposed last month, were meant to blunt the spread of the COVID-19 omicron variant. The Nov. 29 ban barred nearly all non-U.S. citizens who had recently ...

MIAMI — A COVID-19 outbreak took place on a South Florida-based cruise ship for the third time this week, as the number of coronavirus cases in Florida hit its second-highest level since the start of the pandemic. An undisclosed number of passengers and crew aboard the Carnival Freedom cruise caught ...

Ghanaian artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe has a proclivity for contrast. In his striking portraits of Black people, he gravitates toward shades of gray to render the skin tone of single figures or small groups, who sport patterned garments, hats of textured fabrics, and generally vibrant fashions that are in direct opposition to their physical features. The bright, bold color palette is the artist’s preferred method for translating emotional states, inner lives, and idiosyncrasies, one he emulates with the richly textured impasto backdrops surrounding his subjects. More

In the sleek decanters designed by artist Charlie Matz, wine and other spirits trickle through a crab’s claws, a shark’s open jaws, and the belly of a branzino. The playful aeration vessels are handmade with borosilicate glass and position marine life at the necks of the carafe, ensuring that the creatures flush with reds and pinks with every pour. Matz, who works at the Chicago-based Ignite Glass, has a few of the decanters available in the studio’s shop, and you can follow his functional creations and new releases on Instagram. More

SCHIPHOL, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch prosecutors on Wednesday demanded life sentences for four suspects in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, saying they caused “deep and irreversible suffering” to relatives of the 298 people killed. Prosecutors said the four recklessly used a Russian missile ...

BERLIN (AP) — Germany announced new restrictions Tuesday that will begin after Christmas to slow the spread of the new omicron variant, rules that will fall short of a full lockdown but will include contact restrictions even for vaccinated people. “I can understand anyone who doesn’t want to hear about ...

Back in 2009, Dutch wildlife photographer Roeselien Raimond snapped a portrait of a fox that always seemed to be squinting her eyes in contemplation. That first image sparked a fascination with the creatures and their idiosyncratic expressions, an interest that’s culminated in a decades-long project and now montage documenting the fantastically diverse animals. “Foxes’ characters may differ as much as human characters,” she writes. “Shy and arrogant, from wallflower to cocky, chronically happy or notoriously sad. More

Atelier Hatena’s bread bugs are the only critters we’d gladly snuggle up with at night. The whimsical, fiber-rich characters are part of the Hiroshima-based artist’s growing troupe of felt creatures: there are four-legged rolls, tiny insects sprouting mushrooms, and pastries with eyes poking from their crusts. Atelier Hatena’s shop is currently stocked with the adorable critters, although they sell out quickly, so keep an eye on Twitter for updates. More

This spectral offering transports us into a landscape populated by anonymous figures and restless animals, navigating their way through the dead of the night.

Ibbini Studio (previously) creates intricate paper sculptures meticulously crafted to appear as though they have been made in nature. Artist Julia Ibbini and computer scientist Stephane Noyer, who are behind the Abu Dhabi-based studio, spent the last year working on a collection of geometric cylindrical pieces swirling with vine-like forms, mirrored geometric designs that resemble the repeating patterns in honeycomb, and sculptures that look like delicate shells. The duo began collaborating in 2017 and now creates pieces by hand and machine, using a painstaking process that combines analog and digital techniques. More

 NASA marked an impressive milestone when its Parker Solar Probe was the first ever to touch the sun and return earlier this year, and footage from its historic mission offers a stunning glimpse at the massive star’s upper atmosphere. The black-and-white timelapse shows a view from the probe as it hurls through a flurry of glowing bands and sparks that dart across the frame with celestial bodies panning in the background. More

German artist Wilfried Grootens (previously) suspends vibrant, textured paintings evocative of minuscule organisms, bacteria, and other microscopic creatures within sleek sculptures made of glass. He renders lines and geometric shapes on dozens of thin panes that, when pressed together into a larger composite, produce the appearance of three-dimensional forms encased within the transparent material. The resulting works are striking illusions that morph into different, otherworldly creatures depending on the viewers’ perspective, sometimes vanishing entirely depending on the angle. More

From liquid resin and thin strips of wire, Tokyo-based designer Sakae (previously) crafts delicate hairpieces known as kanzashi. The ornamental forms are often worn for special occasions and are realistic in shape and texture, with lustrous petals and wings in translucent shades that catch surrounding light. You can see more of Sakae’s hydrangeas, irises, and daffodils on Flickr and her site, and she auctions her pieces for buyers in Japan. More

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli ministers on Monday agreed to ban travel to the United States, Canada and eight other countries amid the rapid, global spread of the omicron variant. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office announced the decision following a Cabinet vote. The rare move to red-list the U.S. comes amid ...

VIENNA — Germany is tightening travel restrictions for people coming from Britain in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant there. The country’s national disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, added Britain to its list of “virus variant areas” late Saturday. This means anyone traveling from the ...

From hunks of clay, artist En Iwamura (previously) sculpts minimal forms with wildly varied facial expressions that range from shock and surprise to moody contemplation. Etched across the surface of each character are neat pathways of parallel lines, which evoke the clean, sweeping patterns in zen gardens, that are a physical manifestation of the Japanese concept of Ma. The philosophy identifies “the space between the edges, between the beginning and the end, the space and time in which we experience life. More

 We’ve all been there: spending the entire day scrolling through social, responding to texts and DMs and email, descending into internet rabbit holes, and just generally escaping the world through our devices. A quirky, 2D animation titled “Blip” by Hannah Sun weighs in on this unending screen addiction as it plunges into a visual soundscape of incessant pings, bells, and other tones. Watch the colorful commentary above, and find more of the New York City-based designer’s projects on Vimeo and Instagram. More

In his Richmond studio, artist Christopher David White (previously) practices an alchemy of materials as he transforms slabs of clay into deceptive sculptures and functional objects that appear carved from hunks of decaying wood. His trompe l’oeil ceramics are fragile depictions of the hardy material, complete with its gnarled knots and splintered edges in various states of decomposition. To achieve such a hyperrealistic finish, each piece undergoes multiple rounds of detailing—head to Instagram for a glimpse behind-the-scenes—which White starts by shaping the initial form with knots and branches and imprinting large grooves for the grain. More

A scroll through Vanessa Mckeown’s Instagram reveals a bottomless trove of absurdity and the playfully unexpected: cooked spaghetti pours from a bronze tap, a tennis ball bounces off a tennis racket made of waffles, and a trio of donuts hangs from a toilet paper holder. The London-based artist has an eye for the strange, quirky possibilities of humble everyday objects like snacks and plants, and her body of work extends back to 2015 when she photographed minimally composed interpretations on bright monochromatic backdrops. More

France will ban nonessential travel from the U.K. on Saturday to try and slow the omicron variant that is surging on the other side of the English Channel. It is a sign that European countries are tightening rules on each other after early travel bans focused on South Africa, where ...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A powerful typhoon slammed into the southeastern Philippines on Thursday and was blowing across island provinces where nearly 100,000 people have been evacuated from high-risk areas that could be devastated by flash floods, landslides and tidal surges, officials said. Forecasters said Typhoon Rai, which had sustained ...