Islington Design District spotlights ‘Design Journeys’ at LDF 2022

Over the nine days of London Design Festival 2022, the design districts, design fairs and partners will host over 300 different events, exhibitions and installations, playing a key role in the design festival. An ambitious programme of events will be laid out across the city. With a major portion of all the activities being free to access, Londoners and global visitors will have an opportunity to discover and be inspired by exemplary design. The 12 Design Districts aim to contribute to the anticipated design event with their respective unique personalities that mirror the local community and enable visitors to explore the same. Touted as one of London’s creative hubs, Islington is home to independent design stores, studios and designers from across creative industries. Islington Design District will showcase a diverse roster of native talent alongside international brands with presentations around the theme of Design Journeys from September 17 to September 25, 2022. This could signify a journey from one country to another, a creative process or the universal experience of manoeuvring through life.

Let’s journey through some highlights from the design district that you would not want to miss.

Creativity with Waste Material

Pith is a designer, artist, and manufacturer based in Northumberland, UK that was founded in 2020. Pith, the festival's official stationery sponsor, encourages guests to experience the tactility of paper through seminars, product releases, and a pop-up store showcasing the full scope and quality of the Pith creative stationery collection for LDF 2022. 'Creativity with Waste Material' will start a discussion and involve the community on the topic of future and reuse materials. Pith's 'You-do-Yuzu' seminars are part of an exciting series of events. The brand will exhibit the reusability of their Yuzu goods and encourage people to design and make their own Yuzu Notebook.

Cotton: Labour, Land and Body

Craft’s Council will present Cotton: Labour, Land and Body, an exhibition that will delve into the impact of historic and developing relations between Britain and South Asia through the cotton industry in Lancashire. Featuring work by artists Raisa Kabir, Brigid McLeer, Bharti Parmar and Reetu Sattar and commissioned by the British Textile Biennial 2021, the showcase will encapsulate the impact of cotton production on labour, land and the body. Textiles, films and works on paper, take visitors on a journey through time. From punched khadi paper, narrating Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign to boycott imported cloth; coded Bangla script and job titles of production-line workers in handwoven and jacquard textiles, echoing the legacy of imperial textile archives; to the exhaustion of cotton pickers and the tragedies that persist in modern garment factories.

Kasama Potters

LDF 2022 will bring with it an opportunity to explore and purchase exquisite work from the Japanese ceramic town of Kasama. The town has been both a supplier and a recipient of Tokyo's creativity owing to its vicinity to the capital city. The Kasama Potters project will spotlight thirty-two Japanese ceramicists from Kasama. The project’s aim is to promote and showcase the oeuvre of this renowned pottery region with countless ceramic styles. The quality and strength of Kasama’s clay fosters a close relationship between the potter and the region. Kasama’s potters are free to express and be guided by their own aesthetic values when producing works. This leeway of expression is a significant aspect of selecting forms, techniques, and glaze motifs.

Expression | Adventures in Art

London interior design brand Adventures in Furniture (AIF) will launch a curated ensemble of eclectic and abstract photography and paintings by both established and rising talents. The artworks are designed to implant intrigue in living spaces and add personality, mood-enhancing colours and patterns to home interiors. The post-pandemic world needs homes to be safe havens where everyone could work at and retreat to. Homes have moved beyond their functional purpose to become a place to cherish what we love and celebrate our personalities. The uplifting colours and patterns aim to make life after the pandemic a more positive experience. The intent of these ‘adventures in art’ is to enhance personal spaces and explore new creations alongside furniture design and collections. For LDF 2022, AIF will collaborate with-London based photographer Artur Nizicki and Surrey based artist Kasia Clarke.

Translations of everyday objects with Travel Things Museum

How do we convey or receive feelings, thoughts, emotions, and different meanings through objects across different cultures? How does messaging change across national borders? Travel Things Museum is a London-based arts and culture organisation that focuses on global travel, discovery and interaction. Their second exhibition Translations of everyday objects will explore how mundane objects hold meaning across different cultures, people, and places and how they are interrelated. Travel Things Museum collects and curates a diverse assortment of ‘items’ that one comes across during their journeys. The emphasis remains on the power of the material object, something with latent meaning that seeks to be interrogated, and looked upon as an item that narrates its own story.

Visit the Little Greene Islington Showroom

British paint manufacturer Little Greene will welcome visitors in one of their London showrooms to immerse themselves into a colour palette that might inspire their next interior project. The showcase will feature ‘Forest’, a newly curated collection of paints and wallpapers that are reminiscent of the natural world. Their new wallpaper titled ‘Upper Brook St. – Night Garden’ will also find its place in the showroom. Acknowledging the emotional well-being we gain from time spent outdoors, Little Greene re-creates this connection and sense of positivity for homes. Little Greene will also be hosting Mood Board workshops in each of their showrooms, to create an engaging environment for viewers to curate their next scheme.

Celestial Nest by The Architecture Story

During the design festival, Islington Square will be transformed by an ancient Indian technique of mirror making as part of the design fair. This immersive installation by Indian design studio The Architecture Story (TAS) presents a layered experience that celebrates an ancient mirror-making process. The installation aims to heighten the perception of the environment through the unique handcrafted mirrors and the modular framework that connects them. Celestial Nest will be assembled from a custom-designed modular framework from which a cluster of suspended mirrors will form an interconnected, ethereal passage through the space. The Celestial Nest concept stems from the studio’s interest in the South Indian process of Aranmula Kannadi, a historic technique traditional to a small town in Kerala, India, where the artisans produce first-surface mirrors by hand. Conforming to the theme, TAS will create an experience that conveys a ‘journey’ in contemporary and historic interpretation in tandem.

Everything you need to know about London Design Festival 2022. Celebrating its 20th year, the festival takes over the city of London with installations, exhibitions, and talks from major design districts such as Brompton, Shoreditch Design Triangle, Greenwich Peninsula, Design London, Clerkenwell Design Trail, Park Royal, Mayfair, Bankside, King's Cross, William Morris Line, and Islington.