Photographer Dan Tobin Smith, who has spent over a decade specializing in installation and still life photography, has collaborated with creative studio The Experience Machine and jewelry company Gemfields to present VOID, a multi-sensory spatial installation at Collins Music Hall, Islington, as part of the 2019 London Design Festival happening this September. Visitors to the exhibit will become part of an immersive experience, traveling through a series of large-scale projections that showcase the expanded space inside gemstones and map the blurring boundaries between nature and design. 

A selection of Mozambican rubies and Zambian emeralds from Gemfields’ mines, which date back millions of years, are brought to life through photography of tiny microcosms magnified to become abstract, galaxy-like structures. Accompanied by other semi-precious gems created in rare geological processes, these unique mineral formations are discovered, suspended, and frozen in time.