Feel the Sound Exhibition, Barbican Centre,
London, UK

Minimal, intentional light balances easy navigation with supporting deep sensory engagement for this unique sound-based exhibition.
Client
Barbican Centre
Date
2024-2025
Exhibition Designer
Universal Design Studio
Graphic Designer
Hato
 
Project Team
Keith Bradshaw, Benz Roos, Jamie Robinson

The Barbican's Feel the Sound exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to explore sound as a whole-body spatial, tactile, and emotional experience, through a series of eleven interactive and immersive installations.

“
For us, this was a rare and exciting challenge: to design an exhibition where visual impact takes a back seat to other senses.”

To allow hearing, touch and feel to be dominant, we grounded the design in darkness.

Light is introduced only where necessary for safe navigation and wayfinding, or where it directly supports the experience of the work.

“
Designed to gently clear the palette, the cool white light in the interstitial spaces is accompanied by white noise which helps visitors to approach each new piece with fresh perception.”

Working collaboratively with Universal Design Studio (exhibition design), Hato (graphics), and the individual contributing artists, we focused on minimising visual distraction, while helping to intensify the experience for each of the sound-based artworks.

With each artwork deeply affecting multiple senses, the experience of the transition zones between the works plays an important role. We proposed filling these interstitial areas with bright cool white light, to function both as a visual wayfinding cue and as a sensory "palette cleanser" that would allow visitors to reset before entering each new space.

For the artworks themselves, our use of distinct yet subtle palettes was inspired by Hato's graphic identity, built around coloured gradients to express the dynamism of sound. Throughout, the captions and signage rendered in metal are illuminated with precise framing spotlights, giving them a quiet glow.

'Your Inner Symphony' by Kinda Studios x Nexus Studio maps emotional responses to music, occupying a space washed in purple and blues.

Evan Ifekoya's 'Resonant Frequencies', which invited introspection, sits within a soft indigo environment.

In contrast, Temporary Pleasure transforms the Barbican's Car park 5 into a makeshift club, intensified with saturated colour and pulsing energy.


For all installations, the moments of interaction where visitors can listen, touch, and physically engage are sharply defined using controlled beams of white light. This framing keeps focus on the immediate, sensory response to sound. No light is present near digital screens and projection zones, preserving clarity and depth in those experiences - such as the post-cyberpunk dance experience by Elsewhere in India.


Feel the Sound is on at The Barbican Centre until 31 August 2025.