Es Devlin

Es Devlin is an artist and stage designer. She is known for creating large-scale performative sculptures and environments that fuse music, language and light. Devlin has conceived touring stage sculptures for Beyoncé, u2, Adele, The Weeknd and Kanye west as well as two decades of opera, drama and dance worldwide. Her fluorescent red fifth lion roared AI-generated collective poetry to crowds in London’s trafalgar square in September 2018.

The singing tree, a collective choral installation at the v&a museum in London merged machine-learning with sound and light in 2017; The 2016 Mirrormaze in Peckham, London, and room 2022 at Miami art Basel 2017 explored reflective labyrinthine geometries and narratives.

Devlin collaborated with theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli on an interpretation of the order of time read by Benedict Cumberbatch in 2018. Her practice was the subject of the Netflix documentary series abstract: The art of design, and she has been named artistic director of the 2020 London design biennale.

Devlin has been awarded the London design medal, three Olivier awards and a UAL fellowship. She has been named RSA royal designer for industry and was made OBE in 2015. Devlin spoke at Ted2019 on sculpting music, transience and technology.

Studio ES Devlin was due to design the UK pavilion at expo 2020 Dubai, now cancelled due to the pandemic. The poempavilion would continue the work in AI-generated collective poetry first conceived with Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Serpentine Gallery in london in 2017.