The third edition of London Design Biennale has already taken over Somerset House. Visitors can explore over 30 pavilions, from countries all over the world, from now until 27 June.
Each of these pavilions showcases leading international design thinking and helps exchange visions of the ripple effect that ground-breaking design concepts have on the way we live, and the choices we make. This is what the London Design Biennale is all about.
Installations and presentations respond to the theme ‘Resonance,’ and Artistic Director Es Devlin’s call to action: how can design provide solutions to the major challenges and crises the world faces today?
From the pandemic to climate change, equality to migration, through international collaboration, policy making and communication, pavilions explore the role that design can play in changing the world for the better.
Visitors will create music through interactive installations, spend time in spaces that encourage meditation, share stories, explore immersive environments, and experience new perspectives on their surroundings.
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One of the largest and most anticipated installations comes from Es Devlin herself. Forest for Change is a pop-up forest, which has taken over their famous courtyard. The forest features 400 towering trees in a spectacular collision of art and nature.
Elegantly defying the original Enlightenment principles of Somerset House, which specifically prohibited trees in the courtyard, she has provided the must-see art exhibition of 2021, and we are so damn pumped to check it out.
We’re also pumped too see Enni-Kukka Tuomala’s Empathy Echo Chamber. It is an inflatable installation and a reflective space – both literally and emotionally. The Pavilion is made of a reflective material and inside, visitors are encouraged to reflect on their experiences and perspectives together and respond to each other through empathy.
Unlike the echo chamber which only reflects back what we already know and think, the “Empathy Echo Chamber” is a positive and communal echo chamber of exchange where participants are prompted to step outside themselves to really see and be seen by each other.
But there’s much more to see than these two installations. Other pavilions participating include Antarctica, Argentina, Austria, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Poland, Taiwan, and Venezuela, with Italy, Nile Region, Norway, New York City, and Pakistan taking part digitally. There’s so much going on at Somerset House. Don’t miss it!
