Es Devlin Presents Come Home Again | The World Around Summit 2023

“What we really need artists to do is to create habitats for endangered species within the human imagination”-Es Devlin
For our Summit 2023, artist and designer Es Devlin gave exclusive insights into the making of her thought-provoking installation, Come Home Again, presented in front of the Tate Modern in London last September. The project stemmed from an invitation to create a portrait of London, which prompted Devlin to ask: “Who is London? Who are Londoners? There are 15,000 species of Londoner, of which humans are one.”
“The biodiversity of cities is perhaps even more urgent to preserve, and if we can’t preserve the remaining species-of which we are 1/15,000th-then we’re not going to have much hope of protecting them from extinction.”
Highlighting the need to protect the city’s threatened wildlife, she created a cross-sectioned replica dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and filled it with her drawings of the 243 priority species identified by the London Biodiversity Action Plan. A performance space inside the dome was used by choirs to sing the names of these species, adding layers of meaning to the installation that would encourage viewers to ingrain environmental issues into their consciousness, and fellow designers to consider these issues in their processes.
“As designers we are brilliant at working within parameters… So it's a case of adding this extra parameter - which has always been there - it's just been ignored. That parameter is the planet, and it needs to be on that register along with all the others as a budget,” Devlin said.
This interview was recorded in London in the studio of Es Devlin as part of
The World Around Summit 2023 co-presented by The World Around and The Guggenheim Museum.
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