Who is the ‘public’ in the public sphere? What role for art as entertainment in a society of spectacle? In answer to such questions artist Michael Lin’s work is not just about the rediscovery of the flower patterns of traditional Taiwanese fabrics, but about turning the ordinary into the extraordinary and an alternative, unfixed spectacular in the sanctioned public space.

Since the football World Cup introduced the vuvuzela to 
the rest of the world, this 50cm has been tagged the scourge that drives even the most committed terrace-goer crazy with its unrelenting drone. Time out for a different take on the horn, as music educator Pedro Espi-Sanchis makes the case for music lovers to embrace vuvuzelas.

You don’t have to dust off any archive to see Dubai’s quick zero-hero-alleged zero turnabout. But those with business class destination-deficiency syndrome do not dictate life and art, and as Mark Twain quipped ‘reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated’. Surveying the fortunes & development of the regional art and design scenes, one resident expatriate also profiles the work of ‘local’ artists Rokni & Ramin Haerizadeh and Hassan Sharif.

At the opening of the 5th Design Parade in Hyères, Gijs Bakker – designer, teacher and co-founder of Droog Design – was confronted by an exhibition that showed an overview of the work of Aldo Bakker, his son. Here, the elder Bakker describes the emotions of the experience and why it now makes him smile if people ask him if he is in the same profession as his offspring.

For photographer James Mollison his latest book Where Children Sleep became a vehicle to think about issues of poverty and wealth, about the relationship of children to personal possessions, and the power – of lack of it – to make decisions about their lives. Supported by Fabrica and Save the Children Italy, portraits of the world’s children and their ‘bedrooms’ show the universal love of pizza and the inequalities that shape lives in different ways.

Going to a World Expo might not sound as appealing as going to a go-go, but whatever the causes and effects, the economic landscape of 2010 is not the same one that China had in mind when Shanghai first grabbed the prize of host. But what about the visitor’s day out? One engineer with a propensity for such experiences gives a personal account of the architecture & action.

MIND-SETS is the latest exhibition and book by designer Ineke Hans. Mixing personal items with those selected from three local museums in her Dutch base of Arnhem, Hans reinforces the belief that she is loaded with common sense, a designer’s soul and a sculptor’s heart and that her work is the result of mindsets that combine the skills of a technician, poet, anthropologist, problem solver, producer, philosopher and ultimately a ‘stretcher’.

It’s been a long time since crochet was the preserve of grandmothers keeping up the supply of doilies. Like many craft-based skills, its techniques and forms have been reinvigorated and if you count cars and bikes as proof of the latest patterns, then the work of New York-based artist Olek is a good new-fashioned yarn.