London Design Biennale 2018 'Emotional States' Opens Sept. 4 At Somerset House

Guatemala pavillion at London Design Biennale 2018

'Emotional States' is the theme selected by organizers of this year’s London Design Biennale, opening at Somerset House on Sept. 4. During the three-week Biennale, 40 pavilions representing six continents, nations, territories and cities will explore the relationship among design, social needs and our emotional responses in a world churning towards instability and reorganization. The Somersethouse website writes:

Taking over the entirety of Somerset House, including The Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court and River Terrace, it will explore big questions and ideas about sustainability, migration, pollution, energy, cities, and social equality. Visitors will enjoy engaging and interactive installations, innovations, artworks and proposed design solutions - all in an immersive, inspiring and entertaining tour of the world. 

The London Design Biennale is a new kid on the block, opening for the first time in 2016 soon after Britain voted to leave the European Union.  “Design is very attuned to emotions because it’s trying to make people feel emotionally connected to objects,” says biennale artistic director Christopher Turner, who heads the Victoria & Albert Museum’s department of design, architecture, and digital. “I chose the theme to encourage people to create visceral and immersive installations that affect people on a bodily level, as well as looking at serious global issues that’ve got people’s blood boiling.”

Metropolis notes that the Somalia pavilion "will present a digital map that depicts the war-torn capital Mogadishu in the past, the present, and possible futures; Norway will show how design is making public institutions more inclusive, with an interactive installation that depicts such innovations as the use of robots in classrooms; the U.S. pavilion will critically examine facial recognition technology; and the British entry, by 2018 Turner Prize nominee Forensic Architecture, will introduce a tool kit to help citizen activists investigate acts of genocide."

 “Sometimes when you go to these big design events, they seem to be addressing themselves,” Turner explains, citing his hopes to nurture a richer discourse around important political issues. “Here, you’ve got countries that are outside of the central focus of design, so you get a much broader, more interesting conversation.”