Es Devlin, the honoree of the 2025 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT, designs environments for individuals to unite — be it a small gathering in a room or throngs filling a massive stadium — spaces in which to blend one’s personal identity with the larger community. She embodies numerous influences; equally comfortable contemplating 17th century metaphysical English poet John Donne, 21st century music and fashion icon Lady Gaga, or Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli.
Throughout the artist and designer’s thirty-year trajectory, Devlin has crafted a vibrant paint representation of the U.K. flag for the Closing Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, a box of lit rain for a rendition of the Crucible, a 65-foot diameter AI-generated poetry pavilion for the World Expo, an indoor woodland for the COP26 Climate Conference, a rotating glowing library for over 200,000 in Milan, Beyonce’s Renaissance tour, and two Super Bowl halftime spectacles. Yet, Devlin also engages on a more intimate scale: the human visage. Her world-building is grounded in the fundamental techniques of observation and illustration: the straightforward actions of the eye and the hand.
For Congregation in 2024, she created chalk and charcoal illustrations of 50 individuals she had never met. Prior to this endeavor, Devlin observes, she had probably sketched roughly 50 portraits throughout her artistic journey — mainly of family or friends, or the rare discreet sketch of a stranger on the subway. However, illustrating unknown individuals demanded another level of focus. “I was examining another person, who often appeared different from me in numerous aspects. Their skin tone might differ, the shape of their nose, eyes, and forehead might represent something foreign to what I normally see in the mirror. I was filled with anxiety and concern to do them justice, striving not to cause offense,” she reflects.
While she drew, she resisted the urge to appease, recognizing her subconscious inclinations emerging, but eventually, in this silent space, found herself in profound connection. “I slowly became engrossed in each person’s eyes. It felt akin to descending into a well, assured by an anchor that I would be pulled back up,” she states. “In every instance, I considered, ‘well, this is it. Here we are. This is the solution to everything, the thread connecting me and the other.’” She regards each sitter as a co-creator of the work.
Devlin’s initiative sparked a series of drawing workshops at MIT, where students, faculty, and staff across the Institute — no previous drawing experience required — were matched with strangers and invited to sketch each other in silence for five minutes. In these 11 sessions throughout the semester, participants practiced capturing a stranger’s likeness on paper, after which the sitter would share their narrative. No specific instructions were provided regarding conversation topics or drawing techniques — yet the outcome became secondary to the experience, the act of being in another’s company and observing deeply.
If pop concerts serve as a medium to elevate private emotional truths into public sentiment — the lyrics once recited in front of a bathroom mirror now resonating in harmonies with thousands — Devlin discovers that same raw intimacy permeating all her creations, urging us to reveal the most essential aspects of ourselves.
“We exist in a time where communicating with each other has become increasingly challenging. We endeavored to discover a method to extract the insights from Es Devlin’s work to nurture listening and forge connections within this vast community we identify as MIT,” states Sara Brown, an associate professor in the Music and Theater Arts Section who led the drawing workshops. The illustrations were subsequently exhibited in a pop-up group showcase, MIT Face to Face, where 80 easels were arranged to face the center of the space like a two-dimensional choir, creating a communal artwork portraying MIT.
During her time at MIT, Devlin explored student labs, conversed with students and faculty in theater arts, delved into creative applications of AI with technologists and curators, and engaged with neuroscientists. “I had my brain scanned two days ago on very short notice,” she mentions, “a functional MRI scan aimed at deepening my understanding of the geography and structure of my own mind.”
“The query I encounter most often is, ‘How do you maintain a sense of self when collaborating with another, especially one who is esteemed and widely admired?’” she expresses, “And I’ve discovered an answer to that dilemma: You must be ready to let go of yourself. You must be prepared to transcend your identity, to perceive through the eyes of another, and through that process, you will begin to uncover more profound truths about who you are.”
She draws inspiration from the philosophy of Iain Gilchrist, a neuroscientist who proposes that a society dominated by the attentional style of the left hemisphere — primarily responsible for language and logical reasoning — requires balance from the right hemisphere, which governs nonverbal forms of attention. While the left hemisphere categorizes and divides, the right perceives the universe as a cohesive totality. And it is under the influence of the right hemisphere’s mode of attention, Devlin asserts, that she enters the flow state of drawing, a realm beyond the limits of language, allowing her to experience a deeper connection with the entire cosmos.
Whether sketching a stranger with pencil and paper or collaborating with partners, Devlin firmly believes the secret to self-awareness lies, paradoxically, in losing oneself.
In all her endeavors, she pursues the exhilarating moment when the divides between self and world become more permeable. In an age marked by division, her message is vital. “I believe it’s fundamentally about the fear of the other,” she states, “and I am convinced that dismantling fear is a skill that must be honed, akin to mastering a new instrument.” What might it be like to achieve a greater balance between the attentional modes of both brain hemispheres, the sense of individuality and the cosmic entirety simultaneously? “It could be utterly transformative and potentially avert human extinction,” she comments, “It’s at that level of urgency.”
Presented by the Council for the Arts at MIT, the Eugene McDermott Award for the Arts at MIT was first established by Margaret McDermott in honor of her spouse, a legacy now upheld by their offspring, Mary McDermott Cook. The Eugene McDermott Award occupies a distinctive role at the Institute by uniting the MIT community to support its foremost arts organizations: the Department of Architecture; the Program in Art, Culture and Technology; the Center for Art, Science and Technology; the List Visual Arts Center; the MIT Museum; and Music and Theater Arts. During her residency at MIT, she engaged in a week of discussions with the MIT community’s students and faculty in theater, architecture, computer science, MIT Museum Studio, and more. She also delivered a public artist talk with Museum of Modern Art Senior Curator of Architecture and Design Paola Antonelli, which was one of the highlight events of the MIT arts festival, Artfinity.