Open Call for Artists & Designers
No One Has Taught Me This
We are thrilled to announce our open call for designers, artists, and makers to take part in our upcoming exhibition,
No One Has Taught Me This, held during London Design Festival from 19–21 September 2025.
📍 9 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX (3,000 sq ft)
This curated group show explores intuitive making, non-traditional learning, and personal processes that challenge conventional ways of knowing. We invite submissions from those working across disciplines—whether self-taught, formally trained, or somewhere in between—whose work speaks to instinct, experimentation, and knowledge gained outside the classroom.
About the Theme
There are things we carry in our hands before we name them. Practices passed through observation, instinct, repetition. Knowledge that doesn’t come from instruction, but from doing.
No One Has Taught Me, a group exhibition that celebrates intuitive making, non-traditional learning, and the untaught wisdom of the body. It asks how we learn—outside classrooms, beyond institutions—and how these ways of knowing shape the work we create.
From inherited gestures to experimental processes, from mistakes that became methods to stories embedded in form, the exhibition invites designers, artists, and makers to share works that were born out of necessity, curiosity, and personal discovery. This is a space for techniques that defy manuals, for materials handled on instinct, and for practices that push back against formalism.
The exhibition encourages entries from a wide range of mediums—objects, sound, performance, moving image, and hybrids. We welcome the unfinished, the unpolished, the unexpected.
What We Are Looking For
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Intuitive, self-directed, or experimental approaches
Work developed through instinct, improvisation, or personal exploration—rather than traditional instruction or formal design systems. -
Non-institutional learning and individual methodologies
Practices shaped by lived experience, cultural inheritance, or self-teaching, which challenge conventional notions of expertise. -
Critical engagement with traditional systems of making
Projects that question, subvert, or reinterpret established knowledge, methods, or materials within design and craft. -
Emotionally resonant or personally driven processes
Work rooted in personal narratives, emotional experience, or the body as a site of knowledge. -
Cross-disciplinary, hybrid, or unconventional practices
Innovative approaches that defy categorisation—spanning craft, design, performance, sound, text, digital or participatory forms.
What to Expect
London Design Festival celebrates and promotes the city as a design capital on the global stage.
London Design Festival was launched by Sir John Sorrell CBE and Ben Evans CBE in 2003. Building on London’s existing design activity, their concept was to create an annual event that would promote the city’s creativity, drawing in the country’s greatest thinkers, practitioners, retailers and educators to a deliver an unmissable celebration of design. The launch of the first Festival took place at Bloomberg on 25 March 2003, with a show of support from design, education, government and London organisations. 20 years later, this vision remains ever strong.
In 2019, the Festival welcomed a record-breaking 600,000 individual visitors from over 75 countries. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2022, London Design Festival now moves into a new decade, celebrating how it has played a key role in the growth of the design industry, bolstering London’s position as a global destination for business, culture and tourism, and contributed to the UK’s reputation as a creative powerhouse. As one of the world’s leading design events, the Festival has also served as the blueprint for design weeks and festivals globally and continues to be a key moment on the cultural calendar.
“London Design Festival is a fantastic event which brings together designers from across the globe and demonstrates the capital’s position as a powerhouse for the creative industries. London is known for its creativity and continues to attract the best companies and talent from around the world. I’m delighted to support London Design Festival, which shows that London is open to great ideas, innovation and people from all backgrounds.” Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London.
“London and Design go hand in hand. It is part of our story. London Design Festival is a platform for hundreds of design stories to be told. Each of them talks to an expanding audience hungry for design ideas and enjoying the quality and diversity of what’s on offer. It all confirms London’s status as the global centre of design." - Ben Evans CBE.
6 Awards To Go
Rising Star Jewellery Award
(in partnership with AUTOR)
Recognising a standout voice in contemporary jewellery that demonstrates originality, conceptual clarity and a strong personal vision.
Narrative Impact Award
Awarded to work distinguished by a compelling conceptual and emotional narrative expressed through form, process and presentation.
Material Innovation Award
Honouring work that reveals exceptional exploration and advancement in the use of materials.
Curator's Choice Award
Selected by the curatorial team for its outstanding contribution to the exhibition's theme, execution and relevance within contemporary cultural discourse.
Unconventional Practice Award
Celebrating practices that challenge disciplinary boundaries through hybrid forms, experimental processes and self-initiated approaches developed outside traditional systems.
Public's Choice Award
Voted for by visitors during the exhibition. This award recognises the work that most deeply captivates and connects with the public.
Open Call - Join the Creative Journey
Submit your projects, installations, and concepts, and stand a chance to be featured in this internationally acclaimed event. Embrace the opportunity to connect with fellow designers, industry professionals, and design enthusiasts.
To ensure the highest level of curation and support for the selected projects, there is a participating fee for each application.
Category:
1) Photographs & 2D Art £220
2a) Video Art (looped, a screen shared with all artists in this category) £80
2b) Video Art (individual screen) £280
3) Physical Work & Installation Art £380
Fee covers:
- Space, installation, and curation.
- Private viewing with bar included.
- Collective promotion and marketing.
- Labels and packaging for your works using your original.
We take 0% commission from every sale.
*Only a 2.5% card transaction fee is charged by the payment provider.
You will get:
1) Official London Design Festival Maker Feature
2) LDF Special Edition: Artist Interview (only for Physical Work & Installation Art category)
3) Networking Opportunities
4) Enhanced Visibility
5) Access to Art Market Insights
6) Professional Documentation
7) Customised Artist Support
8) Potential Sales and Commissions
9) Inclusion in London Design Festival Archives
10) International Exposure
How to apply?
To apply, please submit the following:
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Artist bio and artist statement.
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A brief description of your project.
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High-quality images or renderings of your design.
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A summary of how your project addresses the theme of No One Has Taught Me This.
Submission Deadline: Extended to 29 June 2025 23:59GMT
We recommend applying early, as applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
You will receive a response within seven working days of submitting your application.
Please note: All submissions will be carefully reviewed by our curatorial team, and only selected works will be included in the exhibition. Participation is by selection, not by payment. Only artworks submitted and approved during the application process will be eligible for display. No substitutions or unapproved works will be accepted.
How to Participate
Submitting your work is easy!
Complete the Open Call registration form. Share your vision, passion, and portfolio, and let your creativity shine. We are on the lookout for groundbreaking concepts that challenge convention and inspire awe.
Application Fee: £5
Please note that the application fee is non-refundable.