V&A South Kensington has been a museum dedicated to design since long before the Design Museum was conceived, making it the perfect hub for promoting creativity in the capital during the annual London Design Festival. This year’s programme features nine presentations by 14 artists spread across a multitude of disciplines and departments, highlighting both the importance of collaboration and of learning from history.
Born in the tailwind of the Great Exhibition of 1851 the V&A has been celebrating human achievement for almost two centuries and is also inextricably linked to British colonialism. Modern design encompasses so much more than just beautifully made products, with contemporary considerations ranging from the consequences of extraction and pollution to challenges arising from global conflicts and artificial intelligence.
Daria Jelonek and Perry-James Sugden of Studio Above & Below question the need for infinite possibilities and ever faster processing speeds of generative AI models with an interactive installation that links shiny screens with analogue elements to illustrate the impact of even the smallest intervention. By moving rocks across sensors, audience members physically participate in creating a digital landscape, each movement resulting in a new geological formation.
The notion of materials themselves holding memories is a recurring theme, from the Scottish rocks in (S)low-Tech AI to the clay reclaimed by Alicja Patanowska from one of Europe‘s largest mining waste deposits for Ripple Effect, a newly commissioned installation for the V&A’s garden and pond. The majority of the 2,000 hand crafted tiles in the rich blue of mineral deposits stand in contrast to the small number of copper-coloured tiles and represent the ratio of earth mined to extract a small amount of copper, with the garden’s fountain a reminder of the impact of mining on water resources. It is one of very few works in the museum inviting visitors to sit on and touch its surface to literally grasp complex and critical thoughts through direct contact with the marks left by the artist’s hand and by the stories embedded in the material itself.
Memories of a more intimate nature are conveyed in Debris of Text and Eyeglasses by Lebanese artists, designers and activists Rana Haddad and Pascal Hachem who collected and archived the glasses blown from people’s faces in the aftermath of the Beirut Port explosion in 2020. To view the delicate displays of photographic glass panels layered with fragments of text, viewers have to bow down and show their respect to the glasses’ unnamed owners. Glass shards propelled by explosions are a major cause of sight loss, yet without glasses the world appears as blurred as the stories buried in debris.
For Ramzi Mallat it is the sound of breaking glass that shapes his memories of one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history. His response is a display made up of vibrantly coloured ornaments cast from the ambiguous material that represents both fragility and strength. Inspired by traditional Lebanese pastries they are presented as a symbol of unity and shared heritage. Not Your Martyr not only commemorates the victims of the explosion but also acts as a counter-monument to the fifty years since the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. A short film shown as part of Friday Lates links the two events with a documentary highlighting the human cost of living in open-ended economic and socio-political crisis.
In a room usually reserved for special events, Japanese avant-garde designer Ryunosuke Okazaki’s makes his European debut with a collection of seven futuristic creations. The dramatic setting of the Prince Consort Gallery enhances the spiritual connection between past and future and Okazaki’s poetic plea for peace as the grandson of a Hiroshima survivor. Displayed alongside the prehistoric Japanese pottery that inspired them, the designs will come alive during a performance as part of Friday Lates on 19 September.
Jumana Emil Abboud’s research residency at the V&A did not result in a new object but in a treasure hunt for artefacts that tell stories of water. The Water Diviners Trail starts at a wishing fountain near the main entrance and from there leads through departments on several floors to objects from across the globe. The information panels don’t mention Jumana Emil Abboud’s heritage, the inclusion of a Palestinian embroidery is a very subtle hint in this exercise of cultural orienteering. Poetic prompts written by the artist encourage visitors to contemplate and make their own connections to news stories about limited access to water in occupied regions, with plenty of dots to connect for a powerful example of subliminal activism.
More outspoken examples are on permanent display in the atrium of the Design 1900 – Now gallery. A Progress Pride and a Refugee Nation flag fly alongside an updated EU flag with a barcode replacing the circle of stars. The flags are surrounded by contemporary poster designs by four women artists: Ola Jasionowska, Patrycja Longawa, Kaja Renkas and Maja Wolna prove that the tradition of the Polish School of Posters that started in the streets of post-war Poland did not end with Solidarno??.
Jakkai Siributr and Roo Dhissou both explore ideas of home. Siributr’s There’s No Place tackles concepts of identity and belonging in a long-term collaboration with refugee communities at the Thai-Burma border. Visitors are invited to interact with embroidered cloths displayed within The Globe, a wooden sphere conceived as a space of contemplation on the V&A’s lower level. For Heal, Home, Hmm Dhissou applied traditional Punjabi techniques to create a modular system for flat pack mud houses. Made from clay excavated for the HS2 trainline, her design choices are informed as much by environmental concerns as by her lived experience as a disabled person. Both artists use sound elements to fill their interiors with life.
London Design Festival ends on 21st September while the displays at the V&A continue for another month. V&A x LDF V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
