Es Devlin: Other Worlds
London’s Design Museum will open the retrospective “Es Devlin: Other Worlds” on 2 October 2026. The exhibition traces the British artist and designer’s career spanning around 30 years, exploring her work across sculpture, stage design, music, language and light.
The exhibition features artworks, installations and films, alongside the most comprehensive presentation of her archive to date. The solo exhibition is curated by Johanna Agerman Ross and Danielle Thom, together with Margherita Dosi Delfini from the Design Museum. Developed in close collaboration with Es Devlin and her team, the exhibition places her creative working process at its centre.
At the heart of the exhibition is a recreation of Devlin’s studio in South London. Books, objects, models, drawings and working materials offer an immediate insight into how her projects take shape. “It is a great privilege to have the opportunity to share my working process and artistic practice with visitors and to create a new large-scale installation.”
Another highlight of the exhibition is a reinterpretation of the sculptural installation “Come Home Again” – a shrine to endangered animal and plant species – as well as the “30-Year Desk”, featuring designs, photographs and models from three decades. The project “Archive Unboxed” offers an insight into Devlin’s drawing practice through early sketches, paintings and collages.
Visitors can also explore the installation “Infinite Library”. All of the books presented in the installation have been provided by Penguin Random House UK. After the exhibition closes, they will be donated to local primary and secondary schools as part of the “National Year of Reading 2026”.
From the West End to a Global Stage
Born in London in 1971, Es Devlin is one of Britain’s internationally renowned contemporary artists and designers. Her diverse, cross-disciplinary practice began with small-scale theatre productions and evolved from set designs for theatre and opera into large-scale installations, sculptures and productions. Today, her work is presented in museums, opera houses and arenas around the world.
Her best-known projects include installations for the Tate Gallery of Modern Art (Tate Modern) and Trafalgar Square, as well as set designs for major international events such as the Olympic Games and Super Bowl halftime shows. Through her work, Devlin creates spaces for shared experiences and considers the audience an active part of her artistic practice.
The exhibition will be on view at the Design Museum in London until 4 April 2027. Accompanying the exhibition is “A Concise Atlas of Es Devlin”, a new edition of the 2023 publication “An Atlas of Es Devlin”. The book will be published by Thames & Hudson.
