Founded in 2009, Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios Ltd. designs experiences for you to become an astronaut in your living room while dark energy is being created in your kitchen sink and a volcano erupts on your couch.
They are an interdisciplinary design studio which devises subversive events, experiences, and feature-length films. They work on multimedia, highly ambitious projects to empower countercultures and communities by building platforms for them to challenge power structures, while also allowing for change and critical thinking through multi-faceted immersive experiences.
They are pioneers in the design of experiences, their mission is to reveal meanings and power structures through experiential practices and to foster critical thinking within institutions across the world. They have consulted and worked with leading scientists, creatives, writers, brands, politicians, policymakers, musicians, and engineers worldwide and they have a track record of having successfully challenged public engagement mechanics through theatrical, experiential, and design practices. They rethink and question systems in education, design, distribution, communication, public speaking, politics, economics, history, and sociology towards further pluralistic models which we implement in their projects. The team of architects, graphic designers, textile designers, philosophers and more are based in an artist collective in a train carriage on top of a nightclub.
Plurality is one of their core tenets and as a result they support the training of youths, through the University of the Underground, a tuition-free charity they founded in 2017 with board members such as Pussy Riot, Noam Chomsky, and Massive Attack; it supports free, pluralistic, and transnational education.
In 2020, Dezeen shortlisted Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios Ltd. one of the world’s best design studios and in 2021 The Dots selected Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios Ltd. as one of the “Top 50 companies to work for in 2021”.
About Nelly (she/ they):
Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian Ph.D is an award-winning designer of experiences,a filmmaker and creative director, who creates multi-dimensional experiential projects at the intersection of film,science,tech,theatre,politics and design.Wired awarded her with their inaugural Innovation Fellowship,and Icon magazine recognized Nelly as one of the top 50 designers ‘shaping the future’.Nelly has been distinguished as the first on the list of top 50 women on the speaker circuit by The Drum Magazine;Creative Review named her one of the Creative Leaders 50, Dezeen selected her as one of the '50 inspirational women in architecture and design’.She is the founder and director of the International Space Orchestra the world’s first orchestra of NASA space scientists and astronauts;and the founder of the tuition-free university-University of the Underground-which includes board members and activists like Prof.Noam Chomsky,Pussy Riot and Prof.Arjun Appadurai,this tuition-free educative and cultural program is supporting plurality of thinking, free and transnational teaching and unconventional practices in the basement of nightclubs.Nelly is the author and director of five feature-length documentaries(ie: The International Space Orchestra, 2013;Disaster Playground, 2015; I am (not) a monster, 2019;Tour de Moon (2023)and Red Moon (2024)).In 2020,Nelly became a grantee of Sundance Institute with her new documentary-in production-called Red Moon.For this film,Nelly investigates her family origins in Algeria and Armenia-which led to the start of her radio show on Worldwide FM-the 'Nelly Boum Show'.Her various roles include Director of Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios,Designer of Experiences at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute,Senior fellow of the Hannah Arendt center for Politics and Humanities,Vice-Chair of the International Astronautical Federation Technical Committee on the Cultural Utilization of Space, and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence permanent committee amongst others. Ben Hayoun is one of the founding members of the IDEA committee at the IAF (Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Administrative Committee).She founded and runs the Space Culture session at the International Astronautical Congress, where she works to amplify new and fresh ways to implement outreach and critical thinking into scientific institutions and beyond with members of the public. Nelly is a keynote speaker and has spoken worldwide about the value of experiential design practices in the context of nightlife,outreach, community and education.Her work has been exhibited at the National Museum of China, V&A,the MET and other leading institutions.She has two doppelgangers who work with her to appear at multiple places at the same time,a Barbie doll and a Lego made of herself. Nelly leads Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios since 2009, an award-winning interdisciplinary design studio which devices subversive events, experiences, and feature-length films. Clients and collaborators include BMW, Porsche, MINI, LEGO, Mattel, NIKE, NASA, the United Nations, and many more.
Projects
- We’re thrilled to announce that Doppelgängers3 has been selected for the prestigious @SXSW Festival!Doppelgängers3 has been selected for the Feature Documentary, Vision Category which promotes audacious filmmakers, risk-taking artists in the new cinema landscape who demonstrate raw innovation and creativity in documentary and narrative filmmaking. Doppelgängers³” draws on the experience of diasporas to challenge the commercialisation of the moon. Through encounters with doppelgängers and meetings with scientists, visionaries and cultural inventors, Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian and her doppelgän
- Ground Control: How to Create an Opera in SpaceI've always been fascinated by complex bureaucracies and I enjoy figuring out and experimenting with group dynamics, communities and make things happen. After realizing the need for a new and innovative approach to space education and outreach, one connecting emotional and experiential systems, I developed the world first orchestra made of space scientists. In this complex geopolitical production, I will not take no for an answer.
- Super K Sonic BOOOOum: a psychedelic experience of sub-atomic particles...The experiential work Super K Sonic Booooum imagines what it would be like to see sub-atomic particles slam together at high speed and to experience a SONIC BOOUM (when a particle is traveling faster than the speed of light).
+ Show more
Projects credited in
- Top 50 companies to work for in 2021Looking to kickstart or pivot your career in 2021? We’ve put together a list of 50 top companies to work for! We formulated this list by using insights from the popularity of companies and the jobs they post on The Dots, topped off with a dash of our team’s wisdom and a good mix of brilliant charities and pro-social companies. Be sure to follow your favourites to stay up to date with their events and all-important job opportunities!226
- International Women’s Day 2021, meet 100 rising stars inspiring changeWe still have a way to go when it comes to improving gender diversity and equality in the creative, tech and digital industries – which is why it is so important for us, as a platform, to use our force for good. We’re thrilled to be releasing our annual list celebrating and shining a spotlight on 100+ rising stars from underrepresented gender identities – as nominated by The Dots community – who are transforming the industry of today and inspiring the generation of tomorrow. The list beams wit212
- Film: I Am (Not) A Monster‘To act is to begin something new’ said Hannah Arendt, one of the greatest thinkers of all time who coined the concept of the ‘banality of evil’. 'I am (not) a monster' investigates the act of thinking in the twenty-first century as well as fears associated with it. An original and unapologetic performance on political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), whose book The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and essays such as Truth and Politics (1967) are introduced as 'urgently' relevant to our tim11
- Top 100 Creative SuperheroesTo celebrate the launch of Creative Social’s 3rd book, Creative Superpowers: Equip yourself for the Age of Creativity, we have pulled together a list of our Top 100 Creative Superheroes. These are people that we believe are brilliant examples of makers, hackers, thieves and teachers and are helping to define the upcoming Age of Creativity. We have tried to make the list as diverse as possible (because diversity in itself breeds creativity) and is made up of architects, artists, authors, change-m
- This International Women’s Day, meet the 200 Women Redefining the Creative Industry in 2018Discover our 2020 list here This International Women's Day, we asked influential icons to nominate 10 trailblazing women who they believe are redefining the creator landscape. The result? A unique and incredible list of 200 trailblazing women breaking barriers and inspiring change! Only 36% of jobs in the creative sector are currently filled by women. At the top of the tree there’s an even bigger problem - women make up only 11% of Creative Directors. In an attempt to change this, our month-lo165
+ Show more
Work history
Design DirectorNelly Ben Hayoun Studios
London, United KingdomFreelance
Skills
- Design
- Curation
- Experience