London Design Biennale part 2

Second visit to the eclectic exhibition at Somerset House bringing together design work from 37 countries exploring the theme of Utopia with each country having its own display.

I went back as I realised when I wrote up the first visit that I’d missed a large section that was downstairs!

Highlights of this second visit included the South Africa display of suspended chairs based on wild animals. There was a funky lion, a shark and a whale. It was a shame that you couldn’t sit in them, they needed to be used. I also liked the Italian display which had asked 20 Italian designers to design a white flag and each day of the show a new one had been added. As I went on the last day I saw the complete set but it might have looked a bit thin on day one.

I was interested in the Cuban display which looked at the phenomena that due to free public wifi in the country people were sitting in public spaces on their phones. Designers had looked at how to provide safe outside spaces for people to do this in instead. There were wonderful cubes that could be piled up, with USB ports for charging phones and comfortable places to sit. I did feel that it might be better to spend the money and energy on getting free wifi into homes instead.

Closed on 27 September 2016.

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