The Wick List

Viewing Es Devlin: Other Worlds

The Wick Culture - Es Devlin photographed amongst her archive. Photo: Daniel Devlin

Above Es Devlin photographed amongst her archive. Photo: Daniel Devlin

The Wick Culture - Es Devlin's notebook from the Linbury Prize, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Es Devlin’s notebook from the Linbury Prize, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

The Wick Culture - Model segments of ‘Mirror Maze’ by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Model segments of ‘Mirror Maze’ by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

The Wick Culture - Model of ‘Come Home Again’ by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Model of ‘Come Home Again’ by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Model segments of ‘Mirror Maze’ by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

The Wick Culture - Songs for Sorrow sculpture by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Songs for Sorrow sculpture by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Es Devlin photographed amongst her archive. Photo: Daniel Devlin

Above Es Devlin’s notebook from the Linbury Prize, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Model segments of ‘Mirror Maze’ by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Model of ‘Come Home Again’ by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Model segments of ‘Mirror Maze’ by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Above Songs for Sorrow sculpture by Es Devlin, featuring in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum. Photo: Richard Round-Turner © the Design Museum

Design Museum
224 – 238 Kensington High Street
London
W8 6AG
2 October 2026 – 4 April 2027

Behind the scenes.

Es Devlin has built worlds for small theatres and stadium crowds alike. This October, the focus turns onto the world-builder herself. ‘Other Worlds’ is Devlin’s first retrospective in Europe, bringing 30 years of work to the Design Museum alongside the largest solo presentation of her archive to date.

The exhibition begins inside a detailed recreation of Devlin’s South London studio. Books and objects line the shelves, with models and working materials across the desk. From there, ‘Archive Unboxed’ spreads early drawings, paintings and diaries along the gallery walls, revealing just how much of Devlin’s monumental work begins with pencil and paper.

At its centre is the newly conceived ‘30-Year Desk’, gathering material from projects including ‘The Lehman Trilogy’, ‘Forest of Us’, London 2012 and the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show. Models for kinetic concert sculptures sit alongside concept drawings and photographs, allowing projects eventually experienced at enormous scale to be examined up close.

‘Come Home Again’, Devlin’s shrine to endangered species, also returns in a reimagined form, while ‘Infinite Library’ turns books into another immersive installation before they are donated to local primary and secondary schools at the end of the exhibition. For work so often measured in arena-sized spectacle, the pleasure in this exhibition is getting close enough to see where it all begins. Start at the desk and watch the worlds expand.