Es Devlin - Other Worlds: Fascinating insight into her creative process

Es Devlin said of this archive show at the Design Museum that she wanted to, “show a trajectory of 50 years of decision-making in such a way that whether you’re a designer, an artist or whether you’re in business or medicine, whatever it is, you can find a thread in this show that’s relevant and some guidance.”

Which is the exactly the pleasure in this show, expertly identified and carried out by this modern master of design, so that you are simply carried along through it in most satisfying manner. It begins with timed entries into a room which is an exact replica of her studio. A screen appears on one wall, showing a tabletop and Devlin’s hands appear, to draw and montage as her voice talks through some of the highlights of a career which has taken her from being a young artist in Richmond, into becoming one of the world’s most in-demand creatives, designing acclaimed theatre productions and operas, and stage shows by the likes of Adele, U2 and Kendrick Lamar, as well as beloved public installations like her Come Home Again dome which celebration London wildlife outside the Tate Modern... and with a typically winning flourish, her hands then ‘push open’ one wall of the studio to let you into the exhibition proper.

It’s the kind of intuitive appreciation of stoking wonder in audience that marks all her work - but the archive on display shows how much attention to details, planning, drawing, and research goes into these big moments. We see into her notebooks, how she works out concepts and visual moments from a deep understanding of her material, which was right there from when she won her first major stage award for her design for Edward II in Bolton in 1996; her pages of costume designs find her hit upon the idea of all the characters in the play as a combined alphabet, where every detail communicates something.

Es Devlin photographed in Es Devlin: Other Worlds at the Design Museum

David Parry/ The Design Museum

She was actually born in Kingston-upon-Thames, and pages from her teenage art books and early design experimentations (even her passport photo on her student idea was cut-up in a way that seemed like another head was emerging out of face) show this creative compulsion was always there. Art and design went hand in hand and it puts her in a unique position as a cultural leader, a ‘name’ who both engages audiences, but also someone who facilitates the work of others to turn their ideas into visionary moments. Her paper airplane set for The Weeknd, which involves a huge piece of paper folding and taking flight around the stage before crashing, is quite breathtaking.

Reading is at the heart of everything: the show finishes with An Infinite Library, a huge bookshelf containing 2000 books which spins n a mirror base, is an effective monument to the power of reading. Books on seats surrounding it encourage you to take a moment, and when you do flick through the Divine Comedy or the Memoirs of Socrates, you find she has underlined pertinent passages. Again, the kind of detail that brings a shiver.

Even for her this has been a big year, with this show following her highly acclaimed immersive work for the Homo Faber Biennal at Venice. This retrospective is not simply a celebration of a British modern great, but an inspirational insight that reminds you that art is about connecting to others...