The London Design Festival takes place in September every year. As one of the world’s leading design events, the festival celebrates London as a design capital.
Listed below are some recommended exhibitions and installations taking place around London during the festival:
A World of Islands Exhibition & Residency plus What Does a Design Residency Do? Forum Event at the Stanley Picker Gallery. 19th-23rd Sept
The exhibition brings together artistic perspectives and research on the Philippine archipelago, its climate and its people and their movement. One of the largest diasporic tropical populations, Filipinos are dispersed in over 100 countries through forced, government-sanctioned and voluntary movement across oceans.
Hana Mikoshi at the V&A South Kensington. 19th-24th Sept
Together with the Gifu Prefecture in Japan and London based Hayatsu Architects, the V&A presents a Hana Mikoshi or ‘flower shrine’. Inspired by the ‘Mino Matsuri festival’, this sculptural seating installation will be decorated with 50,000 sakura-inspired washi paper flowers handcrafted by craftspeople in Japan.
Melek Zeynep Bulut: OpenWork I Açık Yapıt at the Bernie Spain Gardens, Riverside Walkway. 20th-24th Sept
OpenWork is a performative space which is a theatrical exhibit of transitions. It is all about this rigidity we call the world. Definitions; with corners and walls to be crashed. All the teachings and perceptions that squeeze human being into a concrete mentality only. All the boundaries that make the ‘one’ the ‘other’.
David Adjei presents the FAAM: Resonance at the ArtSect Gallery. 21st-24th Sept
FAAM: Resonance, curated by renowned Architect & Designer David Adjei, is a captivating fusion of fashion, architecture, art, and music. Emerging talents from diverse design disciplines unite, breaking down conventional boundaries to collaboratively redefine creativity, offering attendees a multi-sensory experience.
‘Hackability of the Stool’ by Daisuke Motogi at the Vitra Tramshed showroom. 20th-24th Sept
Tokyo based architect Daisuke Motogi’s research project and exhibition Hackability of the Stool features 100 ideas for altering the iconic Stool 60, designed by Alvar Aalto in 1933. This most elemental of furniture pieces has remained in continuous production since its creation, and celebrates its 90th anniversary in 2023.
Simone Brewster: Spirit of Place at the Strand Aldwych. 20th-24th Sept
Simone Brewster in collaboration with Amorim will present Spirit of Place at Strand Aldwych, an installation of five large scale sculptural vessels. This family of objects, ranging up to 2.5m, represents Amorim’s cork forest at Herdade de Rio Frio, Portugal.
The Farm Shop at Fels Gallery. 20th-24th Sept
Fels presents The Farm Shop – a collaborative project curated by Marco Campardo, Guan Lee and Luca Lo Pinto bringing together designers, architects and studios to realise a functional exhibition space and collection of site-inspired dining homeware designed and produced at Grymsdyke Farm, Buckinghamshire.
Surfacing Stories at the V&A South Kensington. 20th-24th Sept
In this gallery-based intervention, activists, architects, historians and writers offer fresh interpretations of objects in the V&A’S riba Architecture Gallery, exploring stories about provenance, eurocentrism, women, disability, LGBTQ+, colonialism and climate change.
All exhibitions and installations are free
