Resonance by Fung+Bedford at Clerkenwell Design Week 2026 – Photo by ©Sam Frost, courtesy of CDW.
Design. For Clerkenwell Design Week, Fung+Bedford bring Resonance to one of London’s most quietly commanding spaces — the Norman nave of St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield. Three illuminated paper sculptures, each four metres long, hang suspended in the church’s stone volume: modest in material, formidable in presence.
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©Sam Frost.
The work is hand-folded from single Tyvek sheets up to eight metres in length, reinforced with aluminium and architectural fixings, and animated by integrated LED lighting. The technique is rooted in origami logic, but the effect reads closer to architecture. “Individually, each fold appears modest, but together they create a presence far greater than the sum of their parts,” say Angela Fung and Ashley Bedford. The installation, they explain, “explores emergence — the way distinct patterns arise from complex systems — and how simplicity can emerge from intricacy.”
©Sam Frost.
St Bartholomew the Great was not chosen lightly. Few spaces in London carry its particular density of time — and Resonance leans into that deliberately. Light moves through the folded forms, activating surface and shadow in equal measure. “The work acts as an absorber of memory and vibration, holding echoes of sound, music, emotion and history embedded in the walls.”
©Sam Frost.
There is biography here too. This year marks a decade since Fung+Bedford first set up in Clerkenwell as a jewellery studio, and the anniversary gives Resonance an added layer of meaning. “Returning to present work in the place where our practice first began carries a deep personal resonance,” reflects Fung. The scale may have shifted dramatically, but the sensibility hasn’t: “the attention to detail, the commitment to abstraction and minimalism, and the belief that form should always follow function have never left us.”
©Fung+Bedford.
Ten years on, Fung+Bedford are still folding — just at a different scale. Resonance is one of this year’s CDW highlights, and reason enough to make the trip to EC1.
©Fung+Bedford.
Photography is by Sam Frost and Fung+Bedford, courtesy of Clerkenwell Design Week.
©Sam Frost.
