London Design Biennale @ Somerset House

5 Stars

In early June, with much anticipation, I set off to London at an early hour to attend the 2021 edition of the London Design Biennale at Somerset House. Now you might be asking yourself, well what is the London Design Biennale? Well, the London Design Biennale is the response by some of the world’s best and most imaginative designers to the theme of ‘resonance’ set out by the Biennale’s artistic director, the legendary designer Es Devlin most known for her work designing stages for some of the biggest and most influential singers and bands, including, but not limited to Adele, Beyoncé and The Weeknd. The London Design Biennale runs until the 27th June at Somerset House with tickets at £22 and concessions available.

The result of this response is truly phenomenal, around 30 countries and cities have produced pavilions on display throughout Somerset House which surround the Forest For Change in the middle courtyard of Somerset House. There are some real standouts in the mix, including Latvia’s pavilion in which you whisper a secret into a box and a writer in the box produces a short literary piece based on your secret. Another standout comes from Guatemala who have produced singing tubes which visitors are invited to spin to create their own noises. My favourite has to be Austria’s pavilion, ‘Tokens For Climate Care’ in which you use a website to choose 3 words related to helping the climate which are then put through an AI software to produce a laser line drawing projected onto a disc on the floor.

A particular highlight of the event was the welcome speeches to open the event given by the founder of the event, the artistic director, Es Devlin, some of the designers of the pavilions and the legendary writer Richard Curtis who used a quote which has really stuck with me from the climate activist Greta Thunberg saying that we know how to fix the climate crisis, the problem is not putting changes into action.

I would thoroughly recommend the Biennale to everyone, especially those who are invested in helping to save the environment.