ondon’s Islington Green is one of the capital’s
smartest areas, surrounded by restaurants, bars, design
shops and a particularly grand branch of the bookshop
Waterstones, set in what was once the Collins Music
Hall, a Victorian performance space opened in 1863.
The venue seated up to 1,000 people before it was
gutted in a fire in 1958. A relic of the music hall still
exists, 22m below ground. In 2002, developers planned
to relaunch the space as a theatre, but the project was
abandoned following a legal dispute and the venue has
been closed to the public for the past decade.
That will soon change. As part of this year’s
London Design Festival, photographer Dan Tobin
Smith, creative studio The Experience Machine and
Gemfields, one of the world’s leading suppliers of
coloured gemstones, will repurpose the venue with
Void, an immersive animation of gemstone inclusions.
We are used to seeing gemstones encased in
expensive wedding rings, or high up on billboards, or
dripping from the necks of movie stars. It’s sometimes
easy to forget just how fascinating these ancient
natural phenomena are. ‘It’s the imperfections that
make these gems so unique,’ says Tobin Smith. In the
world of gemstones, an inclusion refers to the unknown
elements that, millions of years ago, became buried and
trapped inside the mineral as it hardened and formed;
shards of crystal, bubbles of unknown liquid or gas,
tiny fractures caused by radioactive material.
For clear gemstones like diamonds, inclusions often
affect the clarity of the gem and thus diminish its value.
However, for many coloured gems, such as amethyst,
emerald and sapphire, inclusions are often desirable.
Tobin Smith’s knowledge of the subject has sharpened
over time. A decade ago, he was given a copy of the
book Photoatlas of Inclusions in Gemstones. ‘I was always
looking at it, but didn’t do anything with it,’ he says.
Tobin Smith’s client list includes Alexander
McQueen, Louis Vuitton and Jay-Z. He has experience
with building installations, specifically the creation
of The First Law of Kipple for the 2014 London Design
Festival, a 200 sq m installation comprising thousands
of colour-themed objects.»L ABOVE LEFT, PARAIBA
TOURMALINE, OVAL
BRILLIANT CUT
ABOVE RIGHT, PYRITE
AND HEMATITE IN
QUARTZ, TABLE CUT
∑
Photography
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