Source: Art Basel, Artist and stage designer Es Devlin: ‘Each piece has to be a prototype’, based on an interview with Devlin.
A particular kind of panic arrives when you start making something and realise you have absolutely no idea where it’s going. For many creatives, that feeling signals them to stop, find a reference and look at what worked last time; maybe open a familiar digital art software or iPad drawing app and find a safe place to return to. Do the thing you know you can do. Es Devlin takes almost the opposite view.
“I’ve learned that I make my most interesting work when I don’t know the rules and I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Es Devlin
“I’ve learned that I make my most interesting work when I don’t know the rules and I don’t know what I’m doing,” she told Art Basel. She followed it with a line that feels almost like a manifesto for escaping your own creative comfort zone: “I don’t want to repeat experiments I’ve already done. Each piece has to be a prototype.”
That is quite a statement from someone whose work includes huge kinetic sculptures, Olympic ceremonies, Super Bowl performances and stadium-scale collaborations. These aren't exactly things you casually knock up to see what happens. Devlin says her projects can involve enormous resources and the time of many other people, meaning every new idea carries a genuine risk of not working as she imagined.
Not knowing what you're doing isn't necessarily evidence that you've made a bad start. It can be evidence that you haven't simply repeated yourself. Devlin has even created a room in her home for this kind of uncertainty: a space without a brief or commission where she doesn't know what she'll make by the end of the day. She credits advice from artist William Kentridge, who told her she needed a room where she could make a mess and not be in control.
With Devlin's first European retrospective, Es Devlin: Other Worlds, opening at London's Design Museum on 2 October 2026, it's a timely reminder that a 30-year career doesn't necessarily come from finding a formula and sticking to it. The exhibition brings together her work across sculpture, stage design, music, language and light.
What can we all learn from Devlin? Sometimes the uncomfortable bit at the beginning isn't the problem, and it might be the point of it all after all
Visit Es Devlin for art, insights, and inspiration in stage design, graphic art, and sculpture.
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