London Design Festival preview – east London

This year, aside from the main action in the Clerkenwell and Shoreditch design districts, areas further out seem to be upping the stakes with a number of new and exciting destinations cropping up.

 

Mare Street Triangle
Mare Street Triangle

The Mare Street Triangle in Hackney Central will be showing works at the Netil House, SPACE gallery and The Trampery spaces. As well as displaying work there will be open studio events, 3D printing and digital courses, talks, music, food, and drink.

Down on nearby Columbia Road the Designer Makers organisation is hosting its rather twee Flora + Fauna pop up, selling homeware, stationery, furniture, ceramics, metalwork and prints from designer makers across the UK.

Paul Farrell Summer Fox Winter Fox cushion at Flora + Fauna
Paul Farrell Summer Fox Winter Fox cushion at Flora + Fauna

Shoppers could also do worse than having a peek at East London Design store in London Fields, where interiors brand Mini Moderns’ Remix event will show products by designers including Zoe Murphy, Leonhard Pfeifer, Rimmington Vian, Urban Upholstery and Brume.

Birds by Matt Sewell at Mini Moderns Remix
Birds by Matt Sewell at Mini Moderns Remix

Round the corner on Hackney Road The Looking Glass Cocktail Club will be serving design with its daiquiris, presenting the Decode 
PRO(duct ex)HIBITION of homewares and accessories by designers including VW+BS, and Samuel Wilkinson.

Over in neighbouring Dalston the Printhouse Gallery is looking to Vorticism for inspiration, with the Revisiting Group X show. Artists Ania Wawrzkowicz and Brigit Hegarty are showing works in a variety of media including drawing and installation, responding to the ‘motion, vitality and matrix of lines’ of Vorticism.

Further down towards Bethnal Green the Museum of Childhood is opening its doors for all-ages design fun as part of its current exhibition The Designed Child. Taking place on 14 September, a series of free, drop-in workshops and talks will explore the theme of design for, and inspired by, children.

In the main Shoreditch Design Triangle area, one highlight will be Tord Boontje’s Magnetic Fields show, which revisits the designer’s 1991 graduation project. Boontje has created a series of 3D patterns using electro-magnetism, which are embedded into resin-coated surfaces.

Nearby at graphics store Nobrow, on 19 September Rob Hunter will be giving a talk about his new graphic novel Map of Days. While it’s always a pleasure to have a nosey round the store, visitors are also being treated to an exhibition of Hunter’s work featuring a specially-created screenprint.

More comic book action will be taking place in Hoxton Square thanks for Baxter and Bailey’s Sequential City show, which explores how London has been depicted in comic books throughout the years as inspiration or as taking the city as a character in its own right.

The Gourmand at KK Outlet
The Gourmand at KK Outlet

Also on Hoxton Square, gallery KK Outlet has collaborated with food and culture journal The Gourmand on the photography exhibition Awake and At Home, showing photographs inspired by an image snapped by American poet Alan Ginsberg of his kitchen window.

Nearby at the ICN on Leonard Street, Donna Wilson will be celebrating ten years of design. She’ll be marking this ascension into double figures with a special installation, and will be showing her new collection and limited edition collectables. We’re also promised workshops and ‘all sorts of fun and games’ throughout LDF.

Odd One Out chair by Yinka Ilori
Odd One Out chair by Yinka Ilori

At Old Shoreditch Station, meanwhile, furniture designer, Yinka Ilori will present his first London solo show, It Started with a Parable. The collection is inspired by traditional Nigerian parables and story-telling.

On 21 September female-focussed graphic design platform Graphic Birdwatching will be providing an overview of design highlights in the area at its Design Walk around open studios, kicking off at Durham Yard near Bethnal Green. Participants will get the chance to see a range of work and have a chat with the female creatives behind it.

Perfume, Sir?
Perfume, Sir?

Providing an olfactory dimension to proceedings is Perfume, Sir?, Design Marketo’s event at the Londonewcastle Project Space on Redchurch Street. The ‘multi-sensorial’ exhibition will explore ‘the many different effects of pepper, this most ubiquitous spice’, we’re told, through a collection of limited edition design products, an installation and a series of dinners and workshops.

Moving into the realm of product and furniture, Lee Broom’s Electra House show on Rivington Street looks set to be a definite highlight, showcasing new pieces including the Carousel light fitting and Quilt, a new upholstery collection.

Established & Sons will also be showing new designs including work by architect Jo Nagasaka ‘investigating the relationship between translucency, natural wood grain and colour blocking’ at the Vivid Interval show.

YourStudio on Rivington Street is showing a multi-disciplinary window installation which the consultancy says celebrates the  ‘best of design from the British Isles past and present’.

Venturing further west into Clerkenwell Design District, alongside the many designs stores that call the area home, design fans will be given a rare opportunity to have a peek inside the new home of the Design Council. The space at the Angel Building on St John Street will house events and exhibits, as well as acting as the starting point for a design trail through Clerkenwell.

On nearby St John’s Square, Craft Central will be celebrating printed design at the Imprint show, presenting a selection of contemporary craft and design by UK designer-makers who utilise print and mark-making techniques in their work.

Retail Facility Formwork
Retail Facility Formwork

Industrial Facility’s pop up on Britton Street will preview new projects for OLuce, Mattiazzi and Herman Miller, as well as showcasing Formwork – a collection of modular, stacking desk accessories produced by Herman Miller and designed by Sam Hecht and Kim Colin of Industrial Facility.

In something of a departure from the raft of homeware, product and furniture design on show, Modus on Clerkenwell’s Great Sutton Street is showing photography by Angela Moore, who was commissioned to snap a series of images of the Modus headquarters in Somerset. 

Similarly, watch brand Uniform Wares is also showing 12 photographic prints by fine art photographer Jim Naughten called 12 Details, with portraits of people with an ‘obsession to detail’, according to the brand.

London Design Festival runs from 14 – 22 September. For more information visit http://www.londondesignfestival.com

 

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