Es Devlin's 30 Years of Stage and Installation Work Goes on Show in London

Three decades of work by the British artist and designer Es Devlin are now on display at the Design Museum in London. The exhibition, Es Devlin: Other Worlds, is her first European retrospective, a look back at a career spent mostly in theatres, opera houses and concert arenas. It runs until 4 April 2027.

The show opened on 2 October 2026. The Design Museum says it celebrates Devlin's 30-year creative practice across sculpture, stage design, music, language and light. It brings together her work for theatre, opera, concert stages and large public installations.

Visitors start in a replica of Devlin's studio in Peckham, south London. The room holds her books, objects, models, drawings, tools and paints, so the space shows how the work is made before any of the finished pieces appear.

Some older works have been rebuilt for the museum. Come Home Again was first shown outside Tate Modern in 2022. It features illuminated cut-outs of endangered wildlife set inside a cross-section of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral. For the Design Museum, the piece has been reconfigured beneath a mirrored ceiling.

Another centrepiece is A 30-Year Desk. It is a series of concentric circular desks, one inside the next, that display archival objects, drawings and models from across her career. Each ring holds a different stretch of her work, laid out for visitors to walk around.

A companion book was produced alongside the show. Devlin spent seven years making it. It covers the same three decades as the exhibition, and it gives readers who cannot get to London a way into the material on the page.

Dezeen has published an exclusive video interview with Devlin, filmed at the exhibition. In it, she talks through the show in her own words, which makes it a useful way to hear the story behind the displays before or after a visit.

For anyone planning a trip, the exhibition is on Level G of the Design Museum. Stage designs usually exist only for the length of a production, and many people see them from a seat in the dark. Here, the sketches, models and objects that sit behind those productions are on view in daylight, which is one reason the show may appeal to people who have never set foot in a theatre for her work.