Es Devlin is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist who has made installations and public sculptures for some of the world’s most important cultural institutions and landmarks, from Tate Modern to Trafalgar Square, the Lincoln Center to the V&A. She has also created kinetic stage designs at the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera and the National Theatre, and shaped Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, Superbowl half-time shows and stadium concerts.
This September, she is artistic director of the fourth edition of the Homo Faber Biennial, taking place in Venice. ‘Homo Faber 2026: an Island of Light’ will showcase the work of craft artists from all over the world in 15 immersive installations at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on San Giorgio Maggiore island.
The first record I bought was The Head on the Door by The Cure.
My all-time favourite piece of music is Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares by the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir.
I’m currently listening to Days of Ash, the EP by U2. Very few artists have the courage to respond to today’s polycrises with such a combination of honesty, clarity and joy.
The book that influenced me the most is Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram. He guides you to redraw the edges of yourself, to recognise the porosity between self and other, between human and the biosphere.
What's everyone reading?
I’m currently reading Semiha Berksoy’s Aria of all Colors. It’s the catalogue of the Turkish artist Berksoy’s current exhibition at Istanbul Modern art gallery.
My favourite film is The Truman Show; it was profoundly prescient in 1999.
I’m currently watching Bad Sisters. I consumed each season in a single all-night session.
My favourite gallery is the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. The sound of the sea, the gardens and the grounds are interwoven with the architecture – the biosphere itself is presented as a series of works of art.
I spend far too much time not dancing.
My favourite painting is called Evening Landscape North Frisia (Abendlandschaft, Nordfriesland) by the German expressionist painter Emil Nolde.
The best hotel room in the world is the upstairs room on the Oracle – a wooden Indonesian Phinisi boat that sails around the islands of Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia.
The best exhibition I’ve ever seen was ‘Psycho Buildings’ at the Hayward Gallery [a melding of the architectural and the artistic].
My favourite building is Borobudur temple in Indonesia.
My earliest memory of interior design is my parents allowing us to draw on the walls of our sitting room when we were children.
My favourite place in the world is the clifftop walk along the coast above Fairlight Glen in East Sussex.
My best-loved quote is from a work I made called Forest of Us: ‘Every time I reach a fork in the road I take both paths, and then take both again at the next division. The more my paths divide and multiply, the more I offer myself to the air.’
