Isabel + Helen showcase their "obsession with movement" with kinetic models at The Conran Shop

British designer duo Isabel Gibson and Helen Chesner have filled The Conran Shop's gallery with colourful, kinetic models for their London Design Festival exhibition, Motion Sickness. Spinning orbs, flapping wings and wheeled devices all feature in the exhibition, which marks 10 years since the founding of their London-based art and design studio, Isabel + Helen. The show explores the creative process of design duo Isabel + Helen Many of the models are prototypes, created for collaborations with brands such as Hermès and Burberry, or for installations at venues ranging from the V&A museum to the Coachella festival. The duo wanted to give insight into the creative process behind their projects, which typically centres around model-making. The gallery is filled with kinetic model prototypes "We saw it as an opportunity to showcase the behind-the-scenes of what we do and what we make," explained Gibson, as she and Chesner gave Dezeen a tour of the show. "The way we work, we usually jump to prototypes quite quickly," she said. "Because you can imagine how something will move and you can sketch it, but you need to get hands-on to see how it works in real life." Spinning orbs, flapping wings and wheeled devices all feature Movement has been a recurring theme in Isabel + Helen's work since they founded the studio in 2015, three years after graduating from Chelsea College of Arts, which is where they met. "We've had this obsession with movement and kinetic sculpture," Gibson told Dezeen. "Usually the movement has some form of transformation, or a reveal moment; that's something we're always interested in," added Chesner. "The way things move also affects how you see them," she continued. "You can have so many different emotions too; something can feel really joyful or quite sinister." The backdrop is a series of limited-edition motion paintings The backdrop to Motion Sickness is a series of limited-edition paintings, each depicting a colourful wheel. The designers produced these artworks with movement, using a kinetic machine they built themselves. It allows them to spin a paintbrush, forming a motif of concentric circles. Other focal points in the show include a toy train carrying half a dozen eggs, which wobble in time with one another as the device is wheeled along the table, and a series of 15 paper spheres that spin when you pull a string. One model is a toy train carrying half a dozen eggs Chesner said these projects develop through "trying stuff out and not being too precious about anything". "A lot of the time stuff doesn't work, but you have to just constantly build on it," she said. Simple labels encourage visitors to interact The exhibition also marks a decade of on-and-off collaboration between Isabel + Helen and The Conran Shop. One of the duo's first commissions was the store's LDF exhibition, A Load Of Jargon, presented in 2016 in collaboration with design website It's Nice That. "They saw us at the beginning, when we started out, so marking 10 years with them was really nice," added Chesner. It is among the first exhibitions that The Conran Shop has staged in the basement gallery of its store on London's Sloane Square, which has been the flagship since the closure of its previous locations on Fulham Road and Marylebone High Street. The exhibition was on show at The Conran Shop for LDF It comes a time of reinvention for the retailer, which was founded by Sir Terence Conran in 1973. Since 2023, it has shifted its business model to focus more on its own collections rather than selling pieces by other brands. Other recent milestones include the launch of a furniture collection with Francis Sultana, which was unveiled during last year's LDF. Motion Sickness was on show at The Conran Shop from 12 to 20 September as part of London Design Festival. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world. The photography is courtesy of The Conran Shop. Subscribe to our newsletters Your email address New! Dezeen Agenda US Sent on alternate Fridays, this US edition of Dezeen Agenda is a fortnightly newsletter rounding up everything you need to know from America, featuring news, projects and interviews with industry figures. Plus occasional updates and invitations to Dezeen events. New! Dezeen Showroom New Releases A quarterly newsletter rounding up a selection of recently launched products by designers and studios, published on Dezeen Showroom. Dezeen Debate Our most popular newsletter, formerly known as Dezeen Weekly, is sent every Tuesday and features a selection of the best reader comments and most talked-about stories. Plus occasional updates on Dezeen’s services and breaking news. 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