London Design Festival installation that skews a sense of perspective

There you will find Laetitia de Allegri and Matteo Fogale's stunning installation, 'mise-en-abyme', located on the bridge over the Medieval and Renaissance galleries. Launched at the weekend and running throughout the festival, their work is inspired by the V&A itself and ties together themes from the surrounding displays.

The piece was produced using bespoke floor tiling from Johnson Tiles, teamed with huge transparent acrylic shapes that visitors walk through. In a behind the scenes interview the designers, Laetitia explained:

"What we wanted from the start was to create an experiment. Something that was not just a piece of design to look at but also an experience. We hope walking through it will teach about the effects of perspective, and that it will represent a multi-coloured radical effect that people can really feel and hopefully enjoy.

“We were designing for this special area of the V&A so we wanted to take inspiration from the museum itself. We really like to go and visit for inspiration anyway and so we started looking around at the space that we had been allocated. In the Renaissance space below we have large-scale works displayed in the context of cityscapes, where the light comes through great tinted glass walls. These were our starting points. We decided to create something dreamy, surreal and with floating feelings that would work with the glass materials on display next to it. We’ve tried to match our work to what’s around the exhibition.”

Matteo added, "Obviously we had a lot of restrictions, working within the proportions of the bridge. You can’t block the way – there are health and safety issues and it must be wheelchair friendly. It’s such an old building – you’re aware of how you need to be very careful and can’t risk anything. You can’t hang or support anything to the bridge; you have weight issues to think about. So everything was taken into consideration from the starting point."

See 'mise-en-abyme' at the V&A as part of the London Design Festival (19 - 27th September).