I always get excited when London Design Festival rolls around. It gives me an excuse to indulge in a bit of professional curiosity. With the festival over I wanted to share my best choices from the festival about some installations.
VOID by Dan Tobin Smith + The Experience Machine
This multi-sensory installation was taken place at Collins Music Hall in Islington. This huge underground building was a theatre.
Photographer Dan Tobin Smith as always has a brilliant eye for new perspectives, so the installation shows impossibly close up photographs of gemstones, using a specially adapted gemological microscope.
However, I think special mention needs to go to the presentation of the work. Before to get to the installation you have to walking through with the actual gems themselves, displayed in small cabinets, accompanied by placards outlining all sorts of information about them and in the meantime, intrigued by sound the chorus of female voices, you continue to follow the lights until to reach the center of the building where you can see this installation displaying the film through the 360-degree screen.
The aim to Void is to make questions the boundaries of where nature ends and design begins: Unearthing these inclusions is like opening up a massive catalogue of textures, patterns, colours and forms, things you haven’t seen before and you couldn’t design.
Please Be Seated by Paul Cocksedge
Work of british designer Paul Cocksedge, this huge sculptural installation taking over in Finsury Square.
Made from old scaffolding planks, the aim that the designer wanted to communicate with every single aspect of the installation that is tailored to its environment as well as the function it serves is easy, just please to be seated – indeed the curves raise up to create backrests and places to sit, as well as space for people to walk under, or pause and find some shade.
This huge bench is walks the line between a craft object and a design solution, however it occupies the square without blocking it.
LIFE LABYRINTH by PATTERNITY
Based on three dimension, this labyrinth take the visitors through a personal meditative walking experience that is proven to have both psychological and physical health benefits.
Place in front of Westminster Cathedral it feels appropriate outside because these monochrome blocks referencing the stripes of the red and white exterior of Cathedral. Also they found an unusual link during their research, discovering that there used to be a maze in the same space during the Victorian era.
About the maze and labyrinth we have to spend a few words to understand the exactly means of this installation. Unlike a maze, where you get lost, all parts of a labyrinth take you to the centre. They’re very meditative, and they’ve been found in many ancient civilisations and ancient sites.
You feel free to walk in the labyrinth, notice the sky, listen to the sound and you don’t be afraid because there is no right or wrong to walk in the labyrinth because you will end up in the center. The only thing the required to you is that you have to pay attento to your experience.
From my perspective I don’t think the people understood exactly what was the meaning of the labyrinth because it was used as a bench, indeed especially in the sunny days . The labyrinth should have been built a little bit more higher so the people was “obliged” to walk inside and try that experience.
These are my highlights from LDF ’19. These are just some of few installations that I liked more than the others. Who works in the creative industry needs to getting inspiration from everything surrounds us, so this is why we need to experiment with other art forms, immerse ourselves in new environment. We can’t stay home and waiting to be hit by inspiration, we need to stay connected to the world around us.