YURI SUZUKI turns AMUSEMENT PARK rides INTO ACOUSTIC DIORAMAS
Staged at Osh Gallery within Pentagram’s London headquarters in Islington, Yuri Suzuki: Onomatopia is a solo exhibition running from November 10th, 2026, to January 7th, 2027. Curated collaboratively by sound artist Yuri Suzuki and Vicky Richardson (founder of Pick Up Architecture and former Head of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts), the exhibition investigates the confluence of play, acoustic engineering, and speculative public architecture. Drawing conceptual references from Thomas More’s 1516 text Utopia, mid-century World Expos, and mid-century theme parks such as EPCOT, the project critiques visual dominance in contemporary design by prioritizing acoustic space.
Mechanical Music Wheel | all images ©Chris Kidall Park unless stated otherwise
FIVE play PROTOTYPES TRANSLATE SOUND INTO PHYSICAL ARCHITECTURE
The exhibition is structured around five physical dioramas that function as prototypes for larger public acoustic interventions: The Roller-Coaster (Coaster of Sounds), The Ferris Wheel, The Dodgems, The Helter-Skelter, and The Sonic Carousel. Reinterpreting classic fairground attractions as kinetic sonic structures, each prototype is assembled from modular networks of pigmented industrial piping, vertical collection funnels, and directional acoustic horns. Individual structures incorporate dedicated sound compositions, expanding upon artist Yuri Suzuki’s Coaster of Sounds (Onomatopoeia Series), a modular installation previously exhibited at the 2025 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
The spatial prototypes are displayed alongside process models, recorded audio tracks, archival references, such as a 2001 Walt Disney World map and an Åbäke map of Margate, and a commissioned short film directed by Dylan Hayes documenting the mechanical kinematics and soundscapes of the assemblies. ‘Sound can be a powerful tool for good and bad, but it is often overlooked in a world that is dominated by visual culture. My Onomatopian dioramas use the forms that create sound to build a landscape of escape, from where we can look back at reality and consider how we want the world to be,’ the artist states.
Collision Orchestra
Sonic Carousel 
Harmony in Motion
Whistling Helter Skelter
installation view | image ©Mel Castro Duarte
installation view | image ©Mel Castro Duarte
installation view | image ©Mel Castro Duarte
installation view | image ©Mel Castro Duarte
installation view | image ©Mel Castro Duarte
detail of Collision Orchestra
detail of Mechanical Music Wheel
project info:
name: Yuri Suzuki: Onomatopia
artist: Yuri Suzuki | @yurisuzukilondon
curator: Vicky Richardson
commissioner: Osh Gallery | @oshgallerylondon
production team: Christopher Kidall Park, Robert Poll, Maki Suzuki, Dylan Hayes, Theodor-Alexandru Petrea
dates: November 10th, 2026 – January 7th, 2027
venue: Osh Gallery, Pentagram
location: The Old Sorting House, 46 Essex Road, London N1 8LN, UK
photographers: Chris Kidall Park, Mel Castro Duarte
film director: Dylan Hayes
DOP: Max Conran
film editor: Tamara Ishida
colorist: Lois Chapman
map design: Abäke
designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.
