London Design Biennale 2021

Somerset House is home to LDB 2021 with 38 exhibitions from across six continents considering the vital role of design in addressing global challenges

The third edition of London Design Biennale presented over 30 pavilions to showcase leading international design thinking and exchange visions of the ripple effect that ground-breaking design concepts have on the way we live, and the choices we make. 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.

This year universities, designers, students and members of the public from around the world are amongst participants in two new elements: Design in An Age of Crisis, an exhibition showcasing radical design thinking from the world’s design community, the public, and young people; and Sustainability & Innovation, a series of installations by a selected group of universities and galleries, demonstrating their contribution to global issues through design.

Produced in partnership with Chatham House, Design in An Age of Crisis presented responses to a global Open Call, which attracted 500 submissions from over 50 countries across 6 continents. Visitors walked through an installation at Somerset House displaying three hundred of these projects on printed cards as a ‘cathedral of creativity’. Twelve shortlisted projects are highlighted, with a final room presenting a selection of design ideas from young people.

Universities and galleries took part in Sustainability & Innovation installations. ‘Unfolding’, from the Centre for Natural Material Innovation, University of Cambridge and PLP Architecture focused on the possibilities of engineered timber for producing flexible housing and improving the way we live and build. Academic staff from Kingston School of Art presented four creative research projects, each unified by the notion of designing for, and with, time. The Royal College of Art showcased four companies creating sustainable solutions to ecological issues around global consumption, each part of the Innovation-RCA centre for entrepreneurship. Suspended wooden sculptures respond to nature’s resonance and play with light and shadow in a collaboration between contemporary crafts and applied art gallery Ruup & Form and interdisciplinary artist Naomi McIntosh.

londondesignbiennale.com