The Banquet of Life — an experiential installation

(Initially conceptualised for the Philippine Pavilion at the London Design Biennale 2021)

Project Brief: Resonance

Devlin explains, "We live in an age of hyper resonance, the consequences of which are both exhilarating and devastating. Everything we design and everything we produce resonates. Each idea we generate has the power to reach a mass digital audience undreamt of by previous generations, while the lifespans of the physical products we create often endure long beyond our own. Whether in the social media feeds of millions or in the bellies of marine animals, our ideas and our objects stick around.

In our global, digital era, design can instantly permeate borders and bridge cultures. It can positively alter behaviours and transform societies. Attitudes can evolve and lives can be improved when new ideas resonate and are adopted by extended communities.

At the same time, we are living through the ravaging resonance of mineral mining on our climate and data mining on our democracies. Ours is a period of profound social inequality combined with unprecedented algorithmic application of our personal data, often herding us towards digital echo chambers and ever more siloed communities. 

Designers across the world have been engaged for decades devising responses to these phenomena: developing renewable energy technologies, electric vehicles, smart products and textiles, intelligent architecture, and potent graphic design and digital messaging, as well as physical and virtual experiences and environments that shift our emotions and alter our points of view.

Designers, thinkers, artists and makers have the power to influence and amaze their audiences into profound shifts of perspective, using the mass networks available to them to resonate ideas and practices to help build a more sustainable future.

However, we also face the intractable dilemma that we often find ourselves using resources to talk about the overconsumption of resources. Let’s face this challenge head on and commit to a sustainable legacy for each new work created for London Design Biennale.

As a community of designers approaching shared global challenges from culturally diverse viewpoints, the collective resonance of our ideas and our actions has the power to be truly transformative."

Project Response: The Banquet of Life

In essence, resonance is about the coming together of complementary energies that are aligned in frequency and result in expansion — this can be positive or negative. Since dawn of the Information Age, resonance of ideas has has been amplified through technology, but there are some things that cannot be captured over technology and that the real power of resonance, particularly love is that we are able to form connections in person.

This pavilion focusses on the love that is show through the Bayanihan culture of the Philippines, which refers to the spirit of communal unity, work and cooperation to achieve a particular goal. Though the ‘bayanihan culture’ is rooted in the activity of helping your neighbours carry their home, a ‘bahay kubo’ to a another location, Filipinos believe that “we can survive challenges for as long as we continue to observe spirit of voluntary giving and mutual sharing.” The bonds that allow people to survive such challenges and the universal love for each member of your community is often formed in person, over food — so for this pavilion we celebrate the positive impact and difference we can create globally when we connect with our communities through the essence of the energy that we want to propagate — love for one another and love for our environment.

The visitors will walk through a tunnel of sampaguita (jasminum sambac) where they can smell the scent of the national flower that Filipinos associate with love. Under this covering they will be able to interact with a vibrant banquet table who’s design they will be able to influence.