For eight days during the festival, the spatial laboratory Loop.pH will animate the Design Museum’s atrium with an interactive, site-specific installation called Mind Pilot. Visitors to the museum will have the opportunity to pilot the textile airship using the power and focus of their minds.

One visitor at a time will be connected via a headset to a series of personal monitoring devices. These will detect the visitor’s heart rate and brain activity, controlling the robotics that move the balloon. This installation encourages the idea of an inclusive future where people with varying physical abilities can use thought control to operate flight.

Mind Pilot is commissioned by Ameena M. McConnell, Curator at Large of the Design Museum with support from Arts Council England’s Change Makers Fund.

The Design Museum London Design Festival 2018 Listings

Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition 2018

12 September – 6 January 2019

Now in its eleventh year, Beazley Designs of the Year is the Design Museum’s annual celebration of the most innovative and impactful products, concepts and designers in the world today – which for the first time will coincide with the festival.

Showcasing this year’s round up of world class innovation, the international awards and exhibition present design projects from the previous 12 months across six categories: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Product, Graphics, and Transport. Design experts, practitioners and academics from across the world are asked by the Design Museum to suggest potential projects, from which the museum selects over 80 for nomination and display in the exhibition. The show will feature a variety of design projects, likely taking the help of innovative digital signage solutions to ensure that viewers have a superior experience when exploring the various showings. This year’s shortlist will be announced on 11 September 2018. A high-profile jury chooses a winner for each category and an overall winner – to be announced on 15 November 2018.

Re-considering Canon display with Kingston School of Art

In collaboration with Gallery FUMI, emerging curators from the MA in Curating Contemporary Design at Kingston School of Art presents a display that explores current perceptions of design canons. Re-considering Canon showcases a series of newly commissioned work within the context of selection and collecting in contemporary design curation. Contributing designers include Max Lamb, Glithero and Thomas Lemut.

Gallery FUMI is a contemporary design gallery based in Mayfair, London established by Sam Pratt and Valerio Capo in 2008. The MA in Curating Contemporary Design is a collaboration between Kingston University and the Design Museum has grown into one of the world’s foremost MA programmes for design curators.

Free Entry to the display

Light Bulb Moment in the High Street Shop by Plumen

Saturday 15 September – Sunday 21 October

Celebrating the reinvention of The Plumen 001, winner of Beazley Designs of the Year 2011, this installation will illuminate the Design Museum Shop’s facade. Dimmable and available in a range of colour temperatures, the LED 001 has the same distinctive shape as the original, yet underneath it has been radically improved.

Re-Considering Canon in a Diverse World

Saturday 15 September 2018, 14:00-17:00

This half-day event comprising talks, round table discussions and screenings brings together leading curators and designers to explore how institutional canons are formed.

Adult: £10

Student/concession: £5

Members: £7

The #I_BELONG Salon

Tuesday 18 September 2018, 11:00-18.00

‘Design, how can we use it to create a sense of belonging?’ a salon programme that Invites you to explore this question through a series of visual talks and interactive panel discussions with some of London’s leading designers, artists and creative practitioners across the fields of beauty, fashion and music.

The #I_BELONG Salon programme, including Beauty by Design – the MamaSia story, Style Armour: Rude-boys, Windrush to present

and Breaks, Beats & Basslines, runs alongside the commissioned installation Mind Pilot designed by Loop.pH and curated by Ameena M. McConnell, Curator at Large for the Design Museum, London and supported by Arts Council England’s Change Makers fund.

Free entry

Design Connections: 10X10

Wednesday 19 September 2018, 18:00-20:00

In collaboration with the British Council’s Architecture, Design, Fashion team, the Design Museum is hosting the 2018 edition of Design Connections: 10×10 – an event showcasing 10 emerging designers in the UK.

Adult: £10

Student/concession: £5

Members: £7