Towers & Clouds: V&A

The V & A Museum is one of my absolute favourite museums, it never stops to amaze with continuously providing unbelievable exhibitions and installations.

As part of the design festivities the museum commissioned some really exciting projects, if you were caught up in the mist of the festival frenzy and haven’t had a chance to visit yet don’t worry I’ll give you a run down of what is/was on offer.

Probably the most dramatic entrance I’ve stumbled into for sometime was Zotem, a gigantic structure that stood proud in the grand lobby.

Kim Thome, a Norwegian designer collaborated with Swarovski resulting in this jaw-dropping piece.

Swarovski provided 600 crystals that were all made bespoke for the commission, they were then recessed into the black aluminum structure.

The installation is a mammoth 18metres tall and could be seen from the sixth floor!

Zotem has a roll of multicoloured mesh than runs on a loop through both sides of the installation. Light projects through the mesh fabric and sparkles on the crystals.

Thome describes the piece as;

‘Its play between how something appears and how it actually works – a bit like an optical illusion’.

The installation is an impressive use of colour, height and mix of materials.

I thoroughly enjoyed gazing up at Zotem contemplating all the elements required to make this huge structure.

Squeeze in a visit to Zotem it’ll greet you in the main entrance until 31st October 2015.

In the spirit of high rising installations I headed over to The Tower of Babel designed by Barnaby Barford.

The structural piece was presented with a delicate design with a powerful concept on the city’s consumer industry.

The six metre high tower is made up of fragile bone china shops that are carefully positioned and stacked. Babel consists of 3,000 miniature shops that range from local corner shops to high-end boutiques.

The artist photographed real shops in London and created a tower starting with basic shops at the bottom of the tower and resulting on the fancier stores at the top of the tower.

Barnaby Barford’s idea was to make consumers consider the necessity of retail therapy with the idea that the posh shops would be highly positioned making the hierarchy us as consumers think of these stores.

It was fascinating to think that the installation hadn’t been fixed in place, and one clumsy passer by could cause the whole thing to come crashing down.

I spent ages trying to find familiar looking stores around the mid-section as you’d have to have super human powers to read the expensive shops.

Go have a peek and see which familiar shops you can point out. The six-metre tower will be at the V & A until 1st November 2015.

After gaining neck ache from staring up at all the tall works of art I headed over to another installation, Curiosity Cloud.

With a name like that I was already intrigued, it took a while to find this installation as it was tucked away but once I found this gem it instantly became my favourite.

Located in the Norfolk House Music Room the collaboration from champagne masters Perrier-Jouett and Mischer’ Traxler came alive.

I stepped into a grand room with heavily detailed architectural cornices and paneling, all finished with intricate gold leaf and located in the centre of the space were a cluster of hanging glass globes.

A total of 250 mouth blown glass globes were suspended from the ceiling and inside each piece a handmade bug was placed. The insects were laser cut and hand embroidered.

Some of the globes provided soft lighting, the insects moved inside the vessels creating a poignant noise as they crashed into the glass.

The playful piece was designed for people to interact with nature in a surprising way.

The installation enticed users including myself to get up close and personal and I found myself under it staring at the insects that moved about at different speeds.