Aesop Celebrates the 2019 DesignTO Festival With An Installation by Philip Beesley

Suspended from the ceiling inside Aesop‘s Queen Street West is a piece of artwork entitled Aletheia by Toronto-based designer Philip Beesley. It’s there to commemorate DesignTO, Canada’s largest cultural celebration of design, now in its ninth year. Beesley will be in-store later this evening to present his creation, which also recently appeared in "Transforming Space,” a dual exhibition held with fashion designer Iris van Herpen at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum this past summer.

Known for its sustainable store designs and plant-based skincare, Aesop has a history of supporting local artists, often calling on designers and architects in the designs of their retail spaces. “It is always a pleasure to showcase likeminded creative spirits within our spaces. We found a natural kinship with Philip Beesley—we recently launched this year’s Gift Kits, ‘Atlas of Attraction,’ a shared effort with mutual collaborator, Iris van Herpen,” said Marsha Meredith, Aesop’s creative director in a press release. The piece mimics the shape of a head’s bone formations outlined by a thin membrane that motions in response to its environment. It also features a spherical meshwork of spines, fronds, and glasswork.

Beesley, who’s a part of the Waterloo Architecture and Living Architecture Systems Group, drew his inspiration for Aletheia from a philosophy of deep interconnectedness. “I love the sense that these interwoven, intermeshed forms might also support a kind of collective consciousness,” says Beesley. “Perhaps the hovering sphere of Aletheia’s form might act as a kind of thinking skin for the earth.”

You can see Beesley’s artwork at Aesop Queen Street West until Jan. 27.