London, a new sensory booth helps you release your inner shame

From September to December 2024, in King’s Cross Coal Drops Yard, a multi-sensory, interactive mini kiosk will await visitors to help them deal with their innermost and darker feelings, by offering an intimate yet public refuge for emotional exploration. Commissioned by the London Design Festival and designed in collaboration with K67 Berlin and The Loss Project, the Juicy Booth is the last new project of London-based artist Annie Frost Nicholson, who wanted to create a “sanctuary in an ever-complex world”, a safe space where everyone could confront individual and collective shame “in all its permutations”.

The kiosk, using colour, light and music, is designed to interact with the visitor’s expressed emotion, which can be typed via a retro 80’s keyboard on LED monitors, and is grounded in comprehensive research on human emotions to better identify people’s emotional state and appropriately react to it. The booth explains Taro Gragnato of K67 Berlin, “analyses text input from visitors, […] then provides a customised multi-sensory experience with light and sound. Based on the visitors’ mood, Juicy Booth either empowers them or offers emotional support”.

Previously known as The Fandangoe Kid, Nicholson’s practice has long revolved around the nuanced complexities of the human condition and societal taboos, often creating accessible installations like ice cream vans and skips that offer people the chance to navigate complex feelings. The Juicy Booth continues this exploration focusing specifically on shame, hard to unravel and rarely acknowledged, providing a place of collective reflection on our vulnerabilities.

By thoughtfully merging aesthetic with emotional depth, the repurposed iconic K67 Kiosk also becomes part of a larger conversation on how architecture and design can foster spaces for healing, reflection and emotional growth, supporting communities and individuals through their daily challenges in a fast-paced and often overwhelming world.