Es Devlin

Turning Ideas into Forms

World-renowned artist Es Devlin creates large-scale installations and stage sculptures that combine light, music and language in order to elicit emotional responses and perspective shifts in the minds of her audience. In her work, for which she has been named the Royal Society of Arts Royal Designer for Industry and made CBE in 2022, the viewer becomes a participant.

Es developed her deep understanding of the terms of audience engagement through collaborations in theatre, Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows, and has created some of the most renowned stage sculptures seen by mass audiences in stadiums and arenas around the world. While the audience watches the stage, Devlin observes the audience. Her observations have led to experiments in collective AI-assisted poetry. The collective PoemPortrait which started at The Serpentine Gallery in 2016 continues to be co-authored by the public and the algorithm online today.

Her work has been displayed in Trafalgar Square, the V&A, the Serpentine Gallery and the MET Museum, to name but a few, and she is the first woman to design the British pavilion at the World Expo (2021-2022). Her practice was the subject of the Netflix documentary series Abstract: The Art Of Design (2017) and a BBC Masterclass (2020) and she has been awarded the London Design Medal, three Olivier awards, honorary doctorates from the Universities of Bristol and Kent and a University of the Arts London fellowship.