London Design Festival should organise annual exhibition "that's free to participate in" say emerging designers
Non-profit collective Design Everything is touring the A Seat at the Table exhibition across London in the back of a van to tackle the rising costs and red tape that it says come with showing at the city's design festival.
"If we could ask one thing of London Design Festival (LDF), it would be for them to organise an exhibition every year that's free to participate in through a genuinely open call, and that's exclusively dedicated to promoting the work of emerging designers," Design Everything co-director Jacob Marks told Dezeen.
Design Everything is a London-based collective of creatives who are starting out in the industry.
Next week, the group will unveil A Seat at the Table, a mobile exhibition of 36 chairs by emerging designers shown from the back of a Luton van.
While the show is not part of LDF's official programme, it will stop at seven venues within the festival's design districts during the event, and present the chairs alongside talks, workshops and even a running club hosted from the back of the van.
Marks, who is one of the exhibitors, explained that the exhibition was born from a shared frustration among emerging designers who often feel shut out of participating in established industry events due to a lack of access and funding.
"While there are some LDF platforms that are open to emerging designers, our collective experience has been that these are often reliant on insider contacts and require a considerable amount of personal investment to be a part of, whether that's in professionally documenting your work for an application or sourcing the materials and workshop space to fabricate the piece itself," he explained.
"Putting on your own exhibition is even harder still, with the cost of exhibition spaces and design district participations easily running into the thousands of pounds cumulatively," added Marks.
Design Everything chose to show the chairs from the back of a van in the interest of keeping costs down and making their show as visible as possible to a wide audience during London's biggest design event.
"A Luton van is also a fitting reference to how the majority of furniture is transported around the capital," said Marks.
Selected via an open call that cost £50 to enter, the participants were chosen for their wide-ranging interpretations of what seating can be.
For example, Anna McAllister will present a CNC-machined folded metal chair informed by German agricultural fencing, while Max Hayward will show a squat stool moulded from repurposed cardboard boxes, strapped together to facilitate easy disassembly.
Yashoda Asdeo will also present a low-slung stool crafted from reclaimed teak and mahogany, alongside projects including Maxim Lester's spindly seat formed from steel arranged like "hairpin bends" and Izzy Watson's timber stool flecked with metal to mimic the appearance of petrified wood.
"The decision to pick seating came about predominantly because we think it's a really accessible archetype," explained Marks, who noted that chairs can be made from a whole host of materials and do not require a huge amount of space to construct.
"Seats are also highly functional and deeply human objects, and are therefore the perfect vehicle for hosting events that communicate design's power to impact spaces and build community," added the designer.
Marks also stressed that the events hosted by A Seat at the Table will take place at locations "both in and out of the design world" in an effort to bring a range of people together.
Design Everything was originally launched in 2024 by Lewis Duckworth, who formally co-founded the collective with Marks, Eleanor Murphy, Tabatha Pearce Chedier and Sammi Cherryman, all participants of the show.
The group debuted its first exhibition of emerging designers during last year's LDF at Kindred record store in Clerkenwell, where A Seat at the Table will begin its tour.
"We've built upon this idea of situating design in real-world environments for our 2025 show, whilst also stepping it up quite a lot in complexity!" said Marks.
"This year, there are almost double the number of featured designers."
For Marks and his team, an LDF-run exhibition that is free to enter for emerging creatives would be a way to safeguard the future of designers who are yet to make their mark on the industry.
"Tomorrow's design world will be the people starting out today," said Marks. "And so without this, we find it difficult to see how the future of design will be genuinely reflective and inclusive of people from all socio-economic backgrounds."
The photography is courtesy of Design Everything.
A Seat at the Table takes place from 16 to 21 September 2025 at various locations across London. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Project credits:
Organisers: Design Everything
Participating designers: Alara Sipahioglu, Anna McAllister, Cam Rowley, Catarina da Mata Ribeiro, Clax + Coyle, Eleanor Murphy, Controforma, David Searcy, Eden Cunce, Esme MacGregor, Familiar Form, Indy Miranda, Izzy Watson, Jacob Marks, James Woods, Jesse Butterfield, Joe Franc, Joe Slatter, Lewis Duckworth, Louis Eager, Max Hayward, Maxim Lester, Odd Universe, Pas Mal by Romeo, Qingyun Wang, Reign Charbit, Renate Retno, Reuben Porter, Richard Adetokunbo Aina, Sam Braid, Sammi Cherryman, Saym Hussain, Sofia Matheou, Storque Studios, Tabatha Pearce Chedier, Y Lennon-Chong and Yashoda Asedo
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