Emergence Magazine’s immersive show Shifting Landscapes invites you into communion with the living world

Illuminating the Earth’s ever-changing terrains in a powerful exploration of our entanglement with the biosphere, Emergence Magazine’s immersive exhibition Shifting Landscapes showcases the work of nine artists from across the globe, revealing how their individual practices are shaped by – and document the transformation of – the natural world. These artists – Katie Holten, Adam Loften, Kalyanee Mam, Marshmallow Laser Feast, Gheorghe Popa, Zied Ben Romdhane, Studio Airport, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, and Kiliii Yüyan – thoughtfully and brutally reveal the tragedy of the Earth’s present state of loss and transformation, offering images of poisoned rivers, threatened rainforests, and sand-dredged mangroves. These themes, made all the more palpable through Shifting Landscapes’ immersive form – inviting us to breathe with, touch, hear, and feel the installations – remind us of our active roles as participants in the Earth’s continuous evolution.

Continuing the platform’s own dedication to illuminating the interconnections between ecology, spirituality and culture, the exhibition doesn’t hang its hat on doom and gloom, far from it. In fact, Shifting Landscapes becomes a space of participation and kinship, chorused by birdsong and the tangible silence of the rainforest, where we recognise our indisputable connection with the wider natural world. Here, the show opens our minds to the mutual responsibility we share with the landscapes we call home, shaping this relationship through its innately interactive, sensory setup. The exhibition culminates with Breathing with the Forest, a large-scale audio and video installation by the immersive art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast, offering the opportunity to enter a detailed recreation of the Colombian Amazon rainforest in an ‘open-eyed meditation’ that conjures a vivid sense of reciprocity with the forest and wider world through synchronised cycles of breath. 

Other poignant, thought-provoking works at Shifting Landscapes  include the UK premiere of Lost World, from Sundance Award-winning director Kalyanee Mam, a personal exploration of Cambodia’s Koh Sralau mangrove forests and their violent destruction. Moreover, the show hosts the international premiere of The Nightingale’s Song, a portrait of the declining nightingale population in the UK, documented through Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee’s lens – a sneak peek of the Stories of Emergence film series forthcoming next year. The exhibition also presents an immersive rendition of The Pollinators of Slovenia, Studio Airport’s cinematic study of the role of bees and beekeepers in sustaining the world’s ecosystems, along with Kiliii Yüyan’s photographic interrogation of Arctic loss and Katie Holten’s microscopic examination of cell migration, to name just a few. Together, these works paint a meticulous, unrelenting portrait of Planet Earth at all scales of life.

Shifting Landscapes is open for a limited ten-day run 1-10 December 2023 at London’s Bargehouse on the South Bank, accompanied by a series of free events, including readings and talks with the show’s featured artists and acclaimed writers and biologists, as well as special Q&A film screenings. Visitors will have the chance to see biologist and author David G. Haskell give a presentation that traces the evolution of sound on Earth, hear acclaimed author Ben Okri read from his latest book, and attend a panel about the role of mycelial networks with Entangled Life author Merlin Sheldrake and Marshmallow Laser Feast’s Barney Steel. Admission to the exhibition and events is free, and you can register for your tickets here.