INDUSTRY:
Events
CLIENT:
What Does Not at The Old Session House, Clerkenwell
YEAR:
2026
EXPERIENCE:
Installation + interactive object design
And in these currents, I shall swim
Overview.
A spatial experience about purpose and the forces that move us through life.
Brief: Respond to the subject 'purpose' with a visual and interactive offering at the member's club The Old Session House, Clerkenwell for What Does Not's 'RAW' evening event on September 18th. What Does Not's 'RAW' event series focuses on creating a space for unfiltered stories, performances and music to be shared in spaces that are normally not accessible to the wider public.
Insight: Purpose may be less about knowing exactly where we are going and more about learning what moves us.
Framing: What pulls us?
Installation assistant: Juliette Porisse
Photographer: Polo Farrera
Concept.
This offering explores purpose as something we navigate via a continuously changing relationship, often intuitively and unseen. Inspired by the extraordinary migrations of eels and the invisible forces that guide them at night, translucent fabrics travel across the domed gallery and hall of Old Sessions House as currents, counter-currents and shedding bodies. The dome becomes a moon-like point of orientation for the fabrics that traverse and weave underneath.
A hand-made navigator on the bar tables extends the idea into conversation, prompting guests to consider what pulls them, what they resist, and where they are going. This object, a reimagined fortune-teller from childhood, draws people in through nostalgia and a sense of familiarity. It becomes a small social ritual: choose, unfold, share with the person beside you. What currents are we swimming in and why?
The fabrics are made up of various widths and lengths of organza, sewed and tied together with transparent nylon and thread to create an invisible sense of suspension in air. Lit by spotlights, these tumbling and weaving layers were carefully arranged to interact with light and be softly-textural.
The four navigators are hand-made. The first layer has 4 watercolour pathways. Inside, the next layer is made of the 8 stages of the moon waxing and waning in link with the installation. The final layer underneath, houses 8 separate open questions.
The initial concept drawing and photography moodboard is shown below. Images sourced from Stills.
