Friday Late: Awakenings

Site specific installations explore what it means to create as design, craft and technology increasingly mediate our experience of both digital and physical worlds. Ranging from technology reshaping material culture to subversive sculptural forms, the interventions reframe the familiar, inspiring new thinking around identity, modern spiritualities, and the non-human world. 

Friday Late: Awakenings brings these themes to life through live music, performances, workshops, and talks. Together, these activations awaken us from the everyday to confront the forces shaping our collective future. 

All events are free, and places are designated on a first-come, first-served basis unless stated otherwise. Filming and photography will take place at this event. 

Please note if the V&A or any of the activations reaches capacity, we will allow access on a one-in, one-out basis. 

#FridayLate  

 
A 

Down to Earth 

The Grand Entrance, Cromwell Road 

Performance by Andriy Kyrychenko at 19.45 

DJ set from Holy Harm 18:30-19:45, 20:30-21:30 

Down to Earth is an immersive audio-visual performance by Andriy Kyrychenko, weaving ambient textures, intricate electronica and evolving 3D geometries into symbolic, metaphorical stories about human connection, through sound and image.  Featuring an eclectic DJ set from Holy Harm. 

Andriy Kyrychenko is a Ukrainian-born, UK-based composer, sound artist and curator. Founder of Next Sound Festival, nominee and laureate of music awards, his genre-defying practice spans experimental electronics, electroacoustic composition and audiovisual performance, connecting Ukrainian music with international audiences. 

 @andrey.kiritchenko 

 

With support from Ukrainian Institute 

 

B 

Suzani Embroidery Workshop  

Islamic Middle East, Room 42, The Jameel Gallery  

18:45, 20:00 

 
Duration 45 minutes 

Please note, these workshops have limited capacity. Sign up from 18:15 – 19:00 in the Gallery. 

Join embroidery artist Yulduz Mukhiddinova in exploring suzani -  

one of Uzbekistan’s most significant cultural traditions.  

Learn more about  motifs used within suzani and create your own small, embroidered piece to take home. 

This workshop offers insight into the art form upon which Aziza Kadyri’s installation, ‘Sender Unknown,’ is based. Mukhiddinova has been a key artistic collaborator with Kadyri since 2023 . 

 

@yulduzmukhiddinova 

This event is part of the V&A's Jameel Programme, celebrating 20 years of The Jameel Gallery with Community Jameel. 

With support from the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation. 

 

 

The Raphael Cartoons, Room 48a 

Performances at 19:15 and 20:15 

Duration 30 minutes 

 

Experience artist Li Yilei’s sonic performance with theremin, tape, sampling and movement. Improvised in response to the gallery  and the LDF installation Metamorphic Modulation by Albert Yonathan Setyawan, the work unfolds through repetition, resonance and subtle shifts between body, architecture and sound. Their performances often attend to quiet thresholds at which sound becomes gesture, atmosphere and absence.  

 

@ li_yi_lei_ 

 

D 

Conversations on ‘Art Labour' 

The Raphael Cartoons, Room 48a 

21:00 

Duration 30 minutes

Hear from ceramic artist Albert Yonathan Setyawan about the philosophy behind the LDF installation  Metamorphic Modulations. In conversation with Curator for South-East Asia Dr Louis Copplestone, the talk unpacks  Setyawan’s ethos which he calls ‘art labour’ , referring to the process of producing original objects through replication using a mould.   Explore the meditative quality of his repeated, hand-made practice. 

@albertyonathansetyawan 

The installation is on view at Sculpture, Room 21a , The Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries (No. 10) 

Artwork commissioned in partnership with The Peninsula Hotels’ ‘Art in Resonance’ programme. 

 

E 

Time After Time Talk

Europe 1600-1815, Room 2a, Level -1  

18:30 

Duration 20 minutes 

Andre Williams makes drawings and turns them into domestic environments. Each piece of furniture is hand painted by the artist, with 1980s computer graphics, opulent turn of the century design, traditional African architecture and eclectic lettering all to be found in his heady list of influences. Join the artist for an introduction and handling session inspired by his commission for the Europe Galleries 18th Century Mirrored Room. 

@intoart_uk 

F 

Design your own speculative flower
 
The John Lyon’s Charity Community Gallery, Learning Centre 

Drop in from 18:30 – 21:00 

What flower would you save from being forgotten? Inspired by Linda Dounia's Once Upon A Garden and its reimagined flora, create a speculative flower through collage. Combine colours, textures and forms to imagine a species shaped by memory, ecology and imagination. Think about where it grows, what makes it unique, and the story it has to tell. 

@lindadouniar 

 

G 

Talk: The New Economy of Dance  

Photography Centre, Room 98, The Kusuma Gallery, Level 2 

19:30 

Duration 40 minutes 

What happens to dance when machines can move like us? 

 As bodies and machines become increasingly entangled, join artist Nina Davies and writer/curator Jamie Sutcliffe as they discuss the simulations teaching AI how to navigate our world in physical form and explore new ways of moving - from humanoid robots to gesture-tracking technologies. 

 

Davies’ installation Image Syncers is on display at Design 1900-Now, Room 74b ( No. 8)  

@influential_bro 

@intron_depot 

 
H 

The Soil Sounds Back  

Medieval & Renaissance, Room 50b, The Paul and Jill Ruddock Gallery 

Drop-in, with performances at 19:00, 20:00, 21:00 

Duration 30 minutes  

An interactive installation from Emily Stapleton Jefferis, Adobe Creative Resident at the V&A, exploring soil degradation and ecological loss. Visitors can place their hands into the sterilised soil and hear echoes of the living ecosystem that should be present. 

Jefferis’ sculpture will be activated by a performance from sound and interactive artist Jamie Lee, merging the performed sounds with field recordings of different soil creatures to create a new soundscape. 

@emilysjefferis_artist 

@jamie_leeartist 

Emily Stapleton Jefferis is the V&A Making and Meaning – Mixed Media Resident. The Adobe Creative Residency is supported by the Adobe Foundation 

I 

Tour: Rhythms of Maintenance and Care 

Sculpture, Room 2518:30,  20:30 

Duration 30 minutes  

Please note, these sessions have limited capacity. Sign up from 18:15 – 19:00 at the gallery.  

In collaboration with the conservation team at the V&A, Playfool brings attention to forgotten social infrastructures in the age of AI acceleration. Shadowing the conservator’s daily routine of object cleaning, this guided tour invites audiences to tune in to the rhythms of maintenance and care, reflecting on what gets overlooked in the pursuit of progress. 

 

The tour ends at Photography Centre, Room 108, where you can interact with Playfool’s installation The Server. (Refer to No. 7)  

 

@studioplayfool  

J 

Roots 

The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre, Level 2 

Performances at 19:50, 20:50 

Duration 30 minutes  

Performed by Uzbek singer-songwriter and artist Laylo, Roots take us into the journey of growing up in a country that has recently gained independence: shifting values that make home feel unfamiliar, mixed identities amid nationalism, individual expressions within collectivism, roles imposed on women and intergenerational trauma. 

Laylo’s performance responds to artist Aziza Kadyri’s installation Sender Unknown. ( No. 1) 

@imlaylo 

Supported by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation.

K 

Mazepa’s Ride  

Tapestry Gallery, Room 94, Level 2 

Drop-in 

Mykola Ridynyi’s installation explores Ivan Mazepa’s contested legacy – a political and military leader of the Zaporozhian Sich and Left-bank Ukraine in the late-17th and early-18th century, whose story has been mythologized throughout European art and literature and demonized in Russia.  

Ridnyi, born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, lives and works in Berlin. His work has been presented internationally at various institutions and festivals, including the Manifesta 16 Ruhr, The Kyiv Biennial, the Kochi Biennial, the 56th Venice Biennale among others. 

@mykola_rrrrr 

L  

On-Time Delivery Guarantee 

Architecture, Room 127, Level 3 

Performance at 19:00 and 20:00 

Duration 30 minutes  

A live audio scoring for the film your golf course made my GPU. Artist Sam Ghantous receives and jams with live signals of earthquakes, sand dredging ships, desert wind, microchip stocks, and radios from around the world to create a new soundscape. 

@samtous 

LDF Installations 

1 

Sender Unknown – Aziza Kadyri
Islamic Middle East, Room 42, The Jameel Gallery  
 
The art of suzani – intricately hand-embroidered textiles traditionally made for a bride’s dowry – is one of Uzbekistan’s most significant cultural traditions. Responding to the V&A’s suzani collection, artist Aziza Kadyri reimagines the textile tradition through a new commission exploring the intersection of AI, art and craft. 

While suzani itself has long evolved through shared cultural exchange, AI models introduce a different kind of borrowing – one that can strip away layers of context grounded in lived experiences. 

Moving between handcrafted and digital processes, Kadyri asks whether technologies that risk erasing histories can instead be reimagined as tools for preservation and reinterpretation. 

@aziza.kadyri 

This display is part of the V&A’s Jameel Programme, celebrating 20 years of The Jameel Gallery with Community Jameel. 

With further support from the Sarikhani Family. 

With thanks to Canclini Tessile. 

2  

Time After Time– Andre Williams 

Europe 1600-1815, Room 2a, Level -1 

A new commission by IntoArt artist Andre Williams, paired with a painting by Dawn Wilson, inspired by the musical heritage of the 18th-century mirrored room it sits within. 

Williams’ longcase clock fuses traditions of clockmaking and soundsystem design. Set against the gilded oval interior and zigzag parquet floor, it marks time both visually and audibly, playing daily mixtapes curated by Williams. Decorated with Southern African Ndebele and Cameroonian Bamiléké motifs, the clock stands alongside an easel designed by Williams, holding Wilson’s drawing of Birmingham’s Youthman Promotion Sound System. 

 

@intoart_uk 

 

3  

When the Void Gazes Back – Eunjo Lee  

Europe 1600-1815, Room 4, The Globe, Level -1  
 

Inspired by the V&A’s historic Buddhist art collection, this new commission by Eunjo Lee creates a future world speculating how the growing agency of AI and its use of data can reshape spiritual awakenings and non-human consciousness.  

Through a digitally sculpted film, Lee delves into concepts of Zen, karma and impermanence rooted in Buddhism, reframing digital, shamanistic deities as ever-changing cosmic worlds within themselves. The deities also come alive as sculptures that are partially 3D printed from recycled clay.  

Visitors can follow instructions to interact with the sculptures. 

Artistic collaborators include Josef Stöger (Ceramic Sculptures), Kiryung Arrddon Nam (Interactive Experience Design), Gunho Hyun (Music), Harry Charlton (Sound Design), Steph Hartop (Voiceover) 

@eunjo.lee 

Supported by the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts and Niru Ratnam, London 

4 

Lovers Hold – Henry Svendsen 

Medieval & Renaissance, Room 50a, The Paul and Jill Ruddock Gallery 
 

Lovers Hold extends Svendsen’s ongoing investigation into the plinth, via the spatial politics of cruising sites, reimagining sculptural supports as structure shaped by intimacy, proximity, and bodily negotiation. 

Viscous, grotto-like forms suspended from stainless steel armatures support multiple bodies in repose, drawing on furniture designed for closeness, such as the loveseat. Evoking the improvised nature of outdoor cruising sites, these sculptures materialise fleeting contact as accumulated traces of desire. The work considers how bodies gather through structures not originally designed to hold them, exploring what it means to rest, lean, linger, and make contact in public space. 

@hensven 

 

5 

Craft x Tech: Tokai Project 

Medieval & Renaissance, Room 64b, The Simon Sainsbury Gallery 

Founded by designer and engineer Dr Hideki Yoshimoto of design studio  

Tangent, with curatorial direction by Italian independent curator Maria Cristina  

Didero, Craft x Tech pairs international designers and artists with local Japanese  

craftspeople from the Tokai region to produce new creative works.  

The project explores how Japanese crafts, such as lacquer, metal, woodworking,  

ceramics, washi paper and textiles, can be reimagined through a thoughtful dialogue  

between traditional techniques and contemporary practices. 

@craft.x.tech 

6 

your golf course made my gpu – Sam Ghantous 

 Architecture, Room 127, Level 3 

Digital life is mineral. In your golf course made my GPU, Sam Ghantous explores the entanglement between earth and technology through silica, the second most abundant earthly element. 

The installation considers sand as a substrate onto which societies project their desires and aspirations for progress. From microchips and quartz crystals to artificial islands, his works trace the material state changes of sand across industry and landscape, implicating computing with earthly transformation. 

By reconnecting digital technologies to their geological origins, Ghantous asks how visions of progress become embedded in matter, and how imagined futures remain bound to earth. 

@samtous 

Supported by the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation and the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom. 

7 

The Server – Playfool  

Photography Centre, Room 108, Level 2 
Drawing on the museum’s routine practice of object cleaning, the artist-design unit Playfool explores systems of care  in the age of AI acceleration. 

Behind our daily stream of online stimulation lies a burgeoning number of highly automated data centres. Playfool zeroes in on the one task in these places that resists automation: cleaning. Through alternative game design approaches, Playfool looks at the physical upkeep that sustains both the museum collections and the AI infrastructure, reflecting on what gets overlooked in the pursuit of progress. 

@studioplayfool 

 

8 

Image Syncers – Nina Davies   

Design 1900-Now, Room 74a, Level 2 

Explore how synthetic media alters human perception, behaviour, and identity in this multimedia installation and performance project. 

Nina Davies examines a near future where images no longer depict the world. Grounded in viral TikTok trends where users mimic uncanny AI-generated dances, the work considers how people can adapt themselves to computational aesthetics. 

Presented as an episode of a fictional podcast, the central video essay charts a mysterious collective attempting to physically transform themselves into AI-generated figures. Holographic forms appear as spectral stand-ins for the film’s characters, while surrounding vitrines display analogue props used in their transformation process. 

@influential_bro 

Supported by the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation and the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom. 

9 

Once Upon A Garden: Nadimé’s Garden by Linda Dounia 

The John Lyon’s Community Gallery, Learning Centre 

This display presents a speculative archive of critically endangered and extinct flora. Linda Dounia uses artificial intelligence (AI) to piece together visual data about flowers that may have grown in her grandmother’s garden in West Africa. Drawing on fragmented records and personal memories, she questions the incomplete datasets on which AI is trained. 

The resulting synthetic flowers reflect on what is remembered, valued and preserved, while highlighting the paradox of using resource intensive technologies to imagine what nature has lost. 

@lindadouniar 

10 

Metamorphic Modulation - Albert Yonathan Setyawan 

Sculpture, Room 21a , The Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries 

 

In this ceramic installation, Setyawan explores form and the ambiguity of perception,  through repetition and pattern-making, underpinned by his conceptual investigations into meditative experiences. 

The artwork centres on two enigmatic forms, one evoking a leaf and the other a flower. It comprises over 700 individual pieces,  hand-modelled in clay, slip-cast in red terracotta, and left unglazed to celebrate clay’s particular material qualities. This installation invites us to experience the work from different vantage points, as it shifts in appearance, playing with light and shadow 

@albertyonathansetyawan 

Artwork commissioned in partnership with The Peninsula Hotels’ Art in Resonance programme. 

DIGITAL DESIGN WEEKEND 

The Digital Design Weekend is the V&A’s flagship event on digital cultures exploring the impact and influence of technology in society and culture.  

This event takes place alongside Friday Late in the Learning Centre and continues 19-20 September (10:30–16:30).  

This year's edition explores how creative technologies are reshaping our relationships with ecology, care and community, while questioning our changing relationship with AI. Through interactive installations, workshops, talks and demonstrations, artists and designers invite us to imagine more responsible and resilient digital futures. 

Join us in the V&A Learning Centre to experience interactive exhibits, workshops, and talks where we question, play, and shape more inclusive futures. 

Discover the full programme here 

Supported by Adobe Foundation

 

 

Cover Artwork 

Image Syncers by Nina Davies

Credits: 

Curators: Carrie Chan and Kristian Volsing 

Producers: Faunsia Tucker and Katya Spiers 

Friday Lates are produced by the Contemporary Programme Team at V&A South Kensington, with support from Design, Audio-Visual, Operation, Marketing and International teams