Aesthetica Issue 125

Page 1


SENSORY

UNDERSEA GEOMETRY

IMAGE AS CONSTRUCT

On the Cover

Fares Micue's delightful body of work sees the self-taught Spanish artist appear in front of brightly coloured backdrops. Her face is obscured by balloons, origami butterflies, paper cranes and flowers. The pictures are full of symbolism, delivering a message of personal growth and empowerment. (p. 98)

Art offers a language that transcends noise. It is a tool of resistance and reflection – evoking questions, generating conversation and making space for dialogue where there is division. In times of uncertainty, art is our anchor. It is an invitation to imagine something else, something better. After all, artists are barometers for change. They visualise the shifting undercurrents of our times, making visible what is often hidden. Their work challenges apathy, reignites empathy and fuels collective imagination. Right now, we need art more than ever – to witness our current moment, and move through it with intention. Inside this issue we speak to artists reflecting and reimagining the world through experimentation, storytelling and site-specific interventions. Felicity Hammond’s Variations, which is touring the UK, reflects on contemporary forms of image-making, and the politics of surveillance, extraction and exploitation wrapped up with generative AI. Squidsoup, a collective working at the intersection of technology and experience, transforms data into emotive spatial installations. They will appear in Future Tense – a major exhibition I have curated to open alongside the Aesthetica Art Prize this autumn. Amsterdam’s Nxt Museum presents Still Processing, which is a show that navigates the overflow of digital media and our relationship to it. It’s a timely reminder that human perception is malleable, and that art can slow time. Photographers inside this issue include Alexej Sachov, Anne Mason-Hoerter, Chou Ching-Hui, Diane Hemingway, Fares Micue and Reuben Wu. They are contemporary practitioners who are moving beyond representation; interrogating the frame, unpacking authorship and insisting on new narratives. These artists are responding to ecology, identity, surveillance and truth, often collapsing fiction and reality in the process. We end with Last Words from Marin Sarvé-Tarr, Assistant Curator of the SFMOMA Ruth Asawa show. The thoughtful presentation of Asawa’s intricate wire sculptures underscores her enduring legacy.

Cover Image: Fares Micue, Under the Same Moon, (2021). Image courtesy of the artist.

15 Welcome

We need art more than ever. Inside this edition of Aesthetica, we foreground creatives who are rethinking the world through experimentation.

38 Evoking Memory

Diane Hemingway's dreamy image collection is a deeply personal, bittersweet reflection on how art and nature can help us navigate grief.

68 Staged Realities

Chou Ching-Hui’s intricate Animal Farm series comprises large-scale, diorama-like scenarios, holding up a mirror to contemporary society.

98 Shared Optimism

Balloons, origami butterflies, paper cranes and blooming flowers appear in Fares Micue's self portraits, which are full of hopeful symbolism.

Reviews

126 Exhibitions

We review Anicka Yi, Ed Atkins, Eileen Perrier and Viviane Sassen, alongside World Press Photo and the current show from MoMA PS1.

Books

135 The Latest Publications

Surveying Carrie Mae Weems' monograph, a huge compendium of eco-friendly buildings, and a key LGBTQIA+ history of photography.

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Published by Cherie Federico and Dale Donley.

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18 News

The 19th Venice Architecture Biennale launches 66 national pavilions, whilst Kew Gardens' new installation invites us to step inside an oak tree.

50 Collaged Fragments

Anne Mason-Hoerter presents a fresh approach to the food photography genre, by cutting and pasting many pictures together from memories.

82 Spatial Immersion

The pioneering collective Squidsoup develops responsive, all-encompassing art installations that combine light, sound and new technology.

110 Image as Construct

As definitions of photography change, Felicity Hammond tracks relationships between data mining, image-making and machine learning.

34 10 to See

Innovation is central to our must-see exhibitions this season, including Barbican Centre's Feel the Sound, as well as Design and Disability at V&A.

62 Sensory Experiment

Amsterdam's Nxt Museum is a space dedicated to groundbreaking new media art. Its current show is full of large-scale and multi-sensory experiences.

88 Undersea Geometries

Diver and photographer Alexej Sachov showcases an underwater series, in which fluorescent shapes float against the darkness, far beneath the waves.

116 Ethereal Landscapes

Shimmering white veils drop down from the sky in Reuben Wu's latest body of work, creating the illusion of barriers, or curtains, between worlds.

131 Film

Neo Sora releases his debut narrative feature, Happyend, whilst Daisy-May Hudson's Lollipop follows a young mother released from prison.

Artists’ Directory

142 Featured Practitioners

What will the future of art and design look like? Discover a wide array of exciting approaches to drawing, mixed-media, painting and sculpture.

The Aesthetica Team:

Editor: Cherie Federico

Creative Producer: Eleanor Sutherland

Content Creator: Emma Jacob

Media Sales & Partnerships Manager: Megan Hobson

Marketing & Communications Officer: Phoebe Cawley

Production Director: Dale Donley

Operations Coordinator: Anna Gallon

Projects Administrator: Fruzsina Vida

Administrator: Katherine Smira

Contributors:

Anna Müller

Eleanor Sutherland

Emma Jacob

Vamika Sinha

Reviewers:

Anna Müller, Amanda Nicholls

Eleanor Sutherland, Emma Jacob

Fruzsina Vida, James Mottram

Katie Tobin, Kyle Bryony

Meg Walters, Osman Can Yerebakan

Patrick Gamble, Rachel Pronger

Shyama Laxman, Shirley Stevenson

133 Music

Unknown Beyond from Tan Cologne, Gwenno's Utopia and Aseurai by Phoebe Rings provide a blend of Americana and celestial soundscapes.

Last Words

146 Marin Sarvé-Tarr

The curator speaks about the enduring legacy of Ruth Asawa, whose retrospective at SFMOMA is a celebration of advocacy, creativity and sculpture.

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Of the Oak, by Marshmallow Laser Feast.

Forests Explored

OF THE OAK

Kew Gardens, London | Until 28 September kew.org

There are more than 68,000 plant specimens currently held at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. Some of these are extinct, whilst others represent threatened species from around the globe. It is also home to the largest wild seed bank in the world, kept secure as a safeguard against the disastrous effects of climate change and biodiversity loss. The 2.5 million visitors welcomed to the gardens each year step into an Eden of flora. Given the scale of the operation, it is even more impressive that their new exhibition takes its inspiration from one, solitary plant. Nestled within the garden’s abundant foliage is an oak tree. It is one of the oldest at Kew, grown from a cutting of the very first Lucombe oak, which was discovered in 1762. Now, it is also the centrepiece of the institution’s first-ever outdoor digital art display. Created by renowned collective Marshmallow Laser Feast, the 6-metre-high LED installation fuses scientific research with poetic visuals. The video uses real-world data to unveil the interplay of oxygen and carbon dioxide within the majestic organism. Visitors are whisked away on a sensory journey. They are invited to peer beneath bark and soil to reveal the usually unseen processes that sustain life, and witness the web of 2,300 interconnected species that rely on the oak for sustenance and survival. The artwork also includes a guided meditation that allows audiences to synchronise their breathing with the rhythms of the tree, paying tribute to the therapeutic qualities of spending time in nature. The cutting-edge technology employed is awe-inspiring, opening up new avenues of engagement and imagination.

Visual Activism

LIGHTSEEKERS

Center of Photography, Porto | Until 29 July cpf.pt

The Yanomami is one of South America's largest Indigenous tribes. Their total population is around 45,000, with a territory covering an area twice the size of Switzerland. Since the 1970s, photographer Claudia Andujar (b. 1931) has devoted her life to documenting and defending the Yanomami. Equal parts artistic project and powerful political activism, Andujar's huge –often experimental – catalogue of images is a reflection of the community's culture, and a rallying call to protect it from threats.

Now, Andujar’s work is on view as part of Lightseekers, an exhibition at Bienal Fotografia do Porto. The display places her photography in dialogue with four other artists: Christo Geoghegan, Hoda Afshar, Pariacaca and SMITH. It has a particularly interesting framework, considering the “wet light” of creatives working amongst forest landscapes, and the “dry light” of those in deserts. The exhibition spans from West Asia to the Amazon, highlighting the key role of fine art photographers in raising awareness, disseminating knowledge and, ultimately, resisting erasure. This thoughtful display is just one aspect of Bienal Fotografia do Porto. The event centres attention on actions that can be taken today to secure a better tomorrow, with Kathrin Stumreich’s Mid-air Collisions reflecting on the interaction between the environment and renewable energy sources, and Mónica de Miranda’s Depth of Field imagining alternative ways of living that are rooted in decolonisation and natural regeneration. The future is built on the present, and the creatives featured in Porto are steadfast in addressing the urgency of the current moment.

Spotlight

York Art Gallery | Opens 19 September

This summer is a major moment for art awards. The Turner Prize's four shortlisted artists, announced on the 250th anniversary of JMW Turner's birth, offer a distinct lens on identity, memory and myth. The Art Fund Museum of the Year continues to be a benchmark of curatorial and institutional excellence, with the winner to be revealed in June. Meanwhile, the Max Mara Art Prize celebrates 20 years of identifying, nurturing and supporting emerging women artists with an exhibition that reflects on the world-leading creatives it has platformed over that time period.

One of the most exciting shortlist announcements comes from The Aesthetica Art Prize. This year there are 25 finalists – remarkable practitioners working across photography, painting, installation, mixed-media, video and more. Michelle Blancke, who was recently recognised by the BBA Prize, is amongst those selected for the 2025 award. The photographer's magical images of overgrown woodland: “invite viewers into a parallel and secret world.”

The Aesthetica Art Prize is renowned for spotlighting artists who confront contemporary society head-on, and this year is no different. Liz Miller Kovacs joins Blancke in focusing the lens on the environment; her work asks: what will future cultures think of the destruction humanity has wrought on the Earth? Meanwhile, Sujata Setia's photographic series A Thousand Cuts reflects patterns of domestic abuse within South Asian culture, and Joanne Coates addresses the erasure of working-class histories in the British countryside. As ever, the Art Prize returns with challenging work, inspiring connection between people, places and ideas.

AESTHETICA ART PRIZE

Radiant Creations

Caserne Montlaur, Bonifacio | Opens 28 June derenava-art.com

“Light is not so much something that reveals, as it is itself the revelation.” These are the words of renowned artist James Turrell. In the 1960s, he was part of the Light and Space movement, a group who used light as a method to explore perception. In the past 60 years, there have been countless practitioners who have experimented with the medium. For example, Dan Flavin’s manipulation of fluorescent tubes and Jenny Holzer’s LED writing, both of which employ light as a sculptural tool. Fast forward to today, and technology has allowed the manipulation of light and motion to craft immersive environments, like the wildly popular spaces made by Japanese art collective teamLab. Now, De Renava, non-profit institution is dedicated to the promotion of Corsican cultural heritage, takes light as the focus of its latest exhibition. Plein Soleil is delivered in partnership with Centre Pompidou, sharing 20 works from the Parisian gallery’s collection. The artists included in the show are household names like Judy Chicago and Laurent Grasso, as well as Robert Irwin, who was a pivotal contributor to the Light and Space movement. Ange Leccia’s Le Baiser (1985 – 2024), made of two switchedon spotlights, placed face-to-face, is also on display. The heat and energy of the beams acts as a metaphor for the intensity of two lovers meeting. It forms part of a wider programme from De Renava. The organisation invites institutions from across the Mediterranean to present pieces from their collection to form a dialogue with Corsica's rich cultural history. Plein Soleil speaks to the meaningful new perspectives borne out of collaboration.

PLEIN SOLEIL

Building Tomorrow

ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE

Various Locations, Venice | Until 23 November labiennale.org

This season marks the 19th iteration of Venice Architecture Biennale – the globally anticipated event that alternates every other year with its art world counterpart. 2025's edition, curated by Carlo Ratti, is titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, and explores the transformative power of interdisciplinary collaboration in the face of immense international challenges. Ratti has designed the central exhibition, which comprises a mammoth 750 participants, as a bold answer to ecological emergency. He says: “For decades, architecture’s response to the climate crisis has been centred on mitigation – designing to reduce our impact. But that approach is no longer enough. The time has come for architecture to embrace adaptation: rethinking how we design for an altered world.” This is a truly multidisciplinary presentation, demonstrating how joint efforts can help us solve the big problems. It features an interesting mix of architects, engineers, climate scientists mathematicians, as well as artists, chefs, coders, farmers, philosophers and woodcarvers. The Biennale is best-known for its national pavilions, and, this year, 66 will open their doors. The Belgian Pavilion, Building Biospheres, investigates how plant intelligence can be used to regulate an indoor climate, whilst the current British Pavilion is a partnership between the UK and Kenya, offering a powerful examination of the relationship between architecture and colonialism. Elsewhere, the USA provides a fresh take on the quintessential American front porch, and Uzbekistan unearths one of the USSR’s last scientific projects: research into solar energy.

The Self Obscured

CALYPSO

Michael Reid, Sydney | Until 14 June michaelreid.com.au

The American photographer Paul Caponigro famously said: “It's one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it's another thing to make a portrait of who they are.” This statement encompasses what many artists seek – to create an image that transcends the physical and taps into the essence of a sitter. Likewise, in the National Portrait Gallery article, What Makes a Great Portrait, curator Paul Moorhouse says that his favourite painting has “to do with the capacity of art to intimate truth, however unpalatable.” But is this the only way to make a portrait?

Photographer Gerwyn Davies (b. 1985) upends the assump tion that a portrait must reveal some essential truth about its subject. Through his lens, the self is slippery and unstable. Davies is known for handmade costumes that simultaneously obscure and draw attention to the subject. The artist explains: “The double bind of a figure both conspicuous and nowhere to be seen, hiding in plain sight, is indicative of my investment in queering the act of representation and renegotiating ... visibility.”

Davies' latest exhibition, Calypso, conjures up a world of Aus tralian tropical kitsch. In one image, a figure stands by a pool, their upper body disappearing into a swirl of bubble-gum pink foam shapes. Elsewhere, Davies’ tattooed legs emerge from a tangle of lurid green inflatable crocodiles. This is beach-side fun dialled up to the maximum. Calypso is a celebration of visual abundance and excess, yet at its core lies a serious reminder: the self is not fixed. It is an act of invention, a statement of identity in a world that too often fails to see people for who they truly are.

Urban Backdrop

CLARISSA BONET: CITY SPACE

La Galerie Rouge, Paris | Until 26 July lagalerierouge.paris

Edward Hopper is one of the most revered American artists of century. His most famous painting is Nighthawks (1942), which depicts a late-night diner from the perspective of a viewer looking in at the customers, who appear lost in thought. The piece is a poignant exploration of isolation and loneliness, and it still entrances people today. It only takes a quick internet search to bring up news articles of walk-in 3D versions of Hopper's masterpiece, or the opportunity to breakfast in a recreation of the restaurant. This is an artist whose legacy is as relevant as ever. Hopper has had a huge influence on Clarissa Bonet's (b. 1986) photography. She captures real-life and imaginary scenes in the style of the painter's canvases. City Space was shot entirely in Chicago, although Bonet never directly references the location by name. Its crosswalks, skyscrapers and architecture are the studio for these meticulously staged photographs. Audiences rarely catch a glimpse of her subjects' faces; instead, individuals are depicted from behind, or bathed in shadow. Bonet's isolated figures highlight a tension between physical proximity and the emotional distance felt by many residents living in metropolises. The artist says: “I use city streets as a dynamic backdrop for the subtle, often overlooked dramas of daily life that play out in a city’s planned and built urban spaces.” The images cast new light on traditional street photography, carefully recreating spontaneous everyday moments and capturing the essence of a place. The result is a fascinating portrait of how people interact with a bustling city, become part of it or, often, lose themselves within it.

Nature Reframed

LEE MYOUNG HO: (NO)THING

Gallery Kiwa, London | Until 19 July gallerykiwa.com

Approximately 55% of the world’s population live in urban areas, whilst people in Britain spend between 80% and 90% of their time indoors. There is a growing disconnect between humanity and the natural world – a topic of increasing prevalence for artists. Photographer Zed Nelson won the 2025 Sony World Photography Award for his investigation into how society artificially recreates an “authentic” relationship with the landscape. Elsewhere, Agnes Denes and Edward Burtynsky use their platform to advocate for sustainable living. These projects reflect the urgency of the current moment, where detachment from the environment is causing the climate crisis to accelerate. Now, Lee Myoung Ho’s (b.1975) (no)thing adds to the con versation. The show features Lee’s most celebrated series, Tree (2006 – 2024), which focuses on “portraits” of trees. The twist? These impressive plants are photographed in front of huge can vases. Industrial cranes are required to erect the backdrop, iso lating the tree from its habitat. Here, Lee takes an abstract idea – the way flora can often be viewed in isolation from their wider environment, often to their detriment – and makes it observable. The series has echoes of Korea's avant-garde scene, placing Lee in the company of some of the country's great innovators, such as Kim Kulim. In the late 1960s, Kulim burnt and regrew grass against the rapidly developing Han River backdrop, criti quing industrialisation. Lee’s work is part of a movement that en courages people to see their surroundings with fresh eyes. In the face of real ecological threats worldwide, this is a vital message.

10

to See

RECOMMENDED EXHIBITIONS THIS SEASON

The top shows to see this June and July feature artists that look to a more hopeful future. London Design Biennale and Expo 2025 Osaka consider how design and innovation can improve society, whilst an exhibition at V&A provides a blueprint for inclusivity and equality.

1Feel the Sound Barbican Centre, London | Until 31 August   barbican.org.uk

Feel the Sound is a multi-sensory experience, featuring cutting-edge technology and newly commissioned artwork. Visitors are challenged to listen not just with their ears, but with their whole bodies. The show stretches across many areas of the iconic site, from public foyers to the Centre’s underground parking zone. Each of the 11 installations encourages guests to redefine how they hear, inviting them to dance to beats from car sound-systems, join an everexpanding digital choir, discover their inner symphony and sense music without any audio.

2L ondon Design Biennale

Somerset House, London | 5 – 29 June londondesignbiennale.com

The fifth edition of London Design Biennale continues an admirable mission to demonstrate how design can address society's problems and identify solutions. More than 40 exhibitors tackle the issue of how to protect, and live in, a changing environment. Hong Kong’s pavilion observes brain activity to trace the relationship between emotions and location. Elsewhere, Nigerian designers imagine the Lejja community as a future hub of culture, whilst Oman's pavilion uses pottery, as a metaphor for how humanity preserves what it deems most precious.

3J ulian Rosefeldt: Nothing is Original C/O Berlin | Until 16 September co-berlin.org

Julian Rosefeldt (b. 1965) is best-known for elaborately staged film and video installations. The artist deconstructs classic film genres, such as the Western. His project American Night (2009) takes common motifs – like the solitary rider on the prairie or the saloon brawl –and disrupts them with unexpected references to politics and pop culture. The result is a visual statement that is more than the sum of its parts. Now, C/O Berlin offers an insight into Rosefeldt’s expansive career, revealing the innovative process behind revolutionary artwork.

4

D esign and Disability

V&A South Kensington, London | 7 June – 15 February   vam.ac.uk

This show is a celebration and call to action, showcasing the contributions of Disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent people to design history and contemporary culture. Objects on view date from the 1940s to today, and include the first adaptive Xbox controller; “hacked prosthetics”, such as silicone cutlery, invented by Cindy Garni; and the McGonagle Reader, a device that helps blind and partially sighted individuals vote independently. Here, V&A shows why the experiences and expertise of Disabled people should be embedded into all design processes.

5C lare Hewitt: Everything in the Forest is the Forest Impressions Gallery, Bradford | Until 23 August impressions-gallery.com

In 2019, artist Clare Hewitt read a government report suggesting that loneliness and isolation were increasing in rural areas of the UK. At the same time, she learned that trees communicate, nurture and thrive in sentient communities. Everything in the forest is the forest presents 14 bodies of work that offer valuable insights into how society can learn from the unity found in nature. Hewitt collaborated with The Birmingham Institute of Forest Research on this project, examining a circle of twelve 180-year-old oak trees, within which she set up a photo studio.

6

N ew Horizons: Korean Contemporary Photography

Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester | Until 29 June griffinmuseum.org

New Horizons brings together seven Korean artists whose practices push the boundaries of the photographic medium. Curator Joanne Junga Yang says: “this exhibition invites audiences to see and interpret the familiar world through fresh perspectives.” Anna Lim's Anxiety ON/OFF assumes that catastrophe can happen at any time. The series is like a disaster-preparedness drill and stems from the uncertainty caused by reporting of North Korea’s nuclear missile news. Meanwhile, Jiyeon Sung constructs a dialogue between classical painting and photography.

7

R anda Mirza: BEIRUTOPIA

Fotomuseum Den Haag | Until 28 September   fotomuseumdenhaag.nl

Photographer Randa Mirza (b. 1978) was born during the Lebanese Civil War. She uses the camera to document how the capital of Beirut has experienced dramatic changes in the past 50 years. This show is an intimate portrait of a city, as seen through Mirza’s eyes. In Abandoned Rooms (2005 – 2006), the artist focuses on destroyed houses that provided shelter for displaced families during Syrian occupation. Beirutopia (2010 – 2020) confronts the billboards that promise luxury homes, contrasting them with the violence that still occurs.

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E xpo 2025 Osaka

Various Locations, Osaka | Until 13 October expo2025.or.jp

The first World Expo was held in London in 1851. Since then, it has taken place in 14 countries, showcasing groundbreaking ways to drive progress. This year’s theme is “designing future society for our lives,” and will emphasise sustainability. The UK Pavilion, devised by Immersive International, ES Global and WOO Architects, is modular – inspired by toy building blocks. The interior tells the story of Kenji, a Japanese father, and his daughter, Mei. The experience is interactive, incorporating projection mapping, gamification, dynamic light and spatial sound.

9

P ipilotti Rist: Your Palm is My Universe

UCCA, Beijing | 19 July – 19 October   ucca.org.cn

Pipilotti Rist (b. 1962) is a pioneer of experimental visual art. Her oeuvre is described as “Total Art”, merging video, installation and sculpture to turn galleries into all-encompassing spaces. Now, the acclaimed Swiss creative takes on UCCA’s Great Hall. The large-scale, sitespecific commission considers the human body, bringing into focus the complex cycles of food consumption and digestion. Viewers are swept from microcosms, observing the minutia of cells and nerves, through to macro-perspectives, reflecting on ideas of what it means to eat.

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Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years

Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh | 26 July - 2 November  nationalgalleries.org

Andy Goldsworthy (b. 1956) is a household name, renowned for extraordinary creations made using natural materials. He produces awe-inspiring land art from ice, leaves, rain, rocks, twigs and more, with famous examples including the dry stone Storm King Wall and Wood Line, a 1,200-foot piece made from Eucalyptus branches. Now, a major retrospective celebrates 50 years of innovative practice. The show features over 200 works, spanning installation, photography and sculpture, as well as new pieces commissioned for the display.

1. In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats Photographer: Adil Boukind Exhibition at the Phi Centre, Montreal. Image courtesy of Barbican Centre, London. On display as part of Feel the Sound exhibition 2 . Hong Kong, ‘Human-Centred Design: Visuospace’ © H.S. Choi. Image courtesy of London Design Biennale. 3. Julian Rosefeldt, The Ship of Fools, 2007 © Julian Rosefeldt, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025. Image courtesy of the artist and C/O Berlin. 4. Fork for Cindy suspended in a silicone cap. Photograph taken by Michael J. Maloney. Image courtesy of V&A Museum. On display at V&A South Kensington as part of Design and Disability 5. The Peace Tree  © Clare Hewitt. Image courtesy of the artist and Impressions Gallery, Bradford. On display as part of Everything in the Forest is the Forest 6. Jiyeon Sung. Portrait #19, Red cardigan (2024). Archival Pigment Print. 19x12.67cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester. On display as part of New Horizons: Korean Contemporary Photography 7. The Selective Residence , uit de serie Beirutopia, 2011 © Randa Mirza, image provided courtesy of Galerie Tanit and the artist. On display at Fotomuseum Den Haag. 8. UK Pavilion, Expo 2025 Osaka. Image courtesy of © Immersive International / ES Global. 9. Pipilotti Rist, video still, 2024. Image courtesy the artist and UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. 10. Andy Goldsworthy, Red Tree. North Yorkshire . June 2022. Image courtesy of the artist and National Galleries of Scotland On display as part of Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years, opening at the Royal Scottish Academy on the 26 July 2025.

Evoking Memories

Diane Hemingway’s The Wild Cosmos is a deeply personal reflection on how art and nature can help us navigate grief. The images were created in the wake of profound loss, following the deaths of her mother, father and brother. “My parents were teachers with a great sense of adventure. They loved the outdoors, and each summer, our family of six piled into the Suburban with tents, sleeping bags, backpacks and a collection of 8-track tapes. For months, we’d wind our way across the country, from Maine to California – sleeping under the stars. Looking for light in the darkness, I retraced the cross-country trips of my youth and explored the backroads of Maine. I wanted to rekindle the wonder of my untethered childhood while remembering those I had lost.” These images record poignant moments imbued with a sense of bittersweet magic. Clouds drift just above the ground, ice cracks underfoot and flowers blossom anew with the passing of time. dianedhemingway.com

Diane Hemingway, Gasp (2019).
From The Wild Cosmos . Image courtesy of the artist.
, Fringe Tree , (2019).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Diane Hemingway
Image courtesy of the artist.
, Morning Star, (2019).
Image courtesy of the artist.
Diane Hemingway
Image courtesy of the artist.
Yellow Curtain , (2022).
Image courtesy of the artist.

Collaged Fragments

"Food photography" is usually associated with advertisements, cookbooks and menus, which are full of visually appealing, appetising images. Anne Mason-Hoerter takes a different approach to the genre – one that is rooted in human memory. “I have always found it fascinating how we remember foods we’ve eaten. Sometimes, it is about taste, texture, or colour – how it felt in our mouths or hands, what we discarded, or what it looked like before we cooked it.” Her process is compelling: items are tasted, dismantled and photographed up to 100 times. Months later, relying on memory alone, Mason-Hoerter knits these shots together to create a collage of many pictures. Subjects include apricots, celery, figs and raspberries. Other images focus on the parts we throw away: packaging, skins, peelings, or the contents of cans. The Munich-based Canadian artist is a 2025 World Food Photography Awards Finalist, and Aesthetica Art Prize Longlistee. aine-photography.com

Anne Mason-Hoerter, Succade Image courtesy of the artist.
Anne Mason-Hoerter,
Anne Mason-Hoerter, Rhubarb Image courtesy of the artist.
Anne Mason-Hoerter, Celery . Image courtesy of the artist.
Anne Mason-Hoerter, Pomegranate . Image courtesy of the artist.
Anne Mason-Hoerter,
Anne Mason-Hoerter, Raspberries Image courtesy of the artist.

Sensory Experiment

Nxt Museum

SEVEN GROUNDBREAKING NEW MEDIA ARTISTS ARE TRANSFORMING SPACE, EXPLORING HOW PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSLATE DATA INTO MEANING.

Over the last four years, Nxt Museum in Amsterdam has established itself as a destination for new media art, spotlighting those working at the intersection of art, technology, science and sound. Amongst the exciting artists who have come through its doors are Heleen Blanken, Jacolby Satterwhite, Julius Horsthuis, Lu Yang, Marshmallow Laser Feast and Random International. Still Processing, the latest show, takes a deep dive into how we interpret the world around us. It asks: how does technology shape and manipulate images? And how does the brain process movement, light and sound to construct meaning? These are huge questions, and the seven exhibiting artists – Balfua, Boris Acket, Children of the Light, Gabey Tjon a Tham, Geoffrey Lillemon, Lumus Instruments and Rosa Menkman – come at them from different angles. Menkman (b. 1983), a Dutch artist, researcher and educator, is at the heart of the show. A self-described "media archaeologist from the future," she digs into the machinations of image processing – the technique of using computers to improve, modify or analyse digital images. Menkman traces phases of image development: the transition from analogue to digital, the rise of photo-sharing, computer-generated imagery and JPEG compression. Right now, when generative AI is often in the headlines, her work couldn’t be more relevant. Still Processing takes influence from various moments of human and natural history: from 19th century novellas to 1980s holography and swarms of birds and insects. Each piece offers a different sensory experience, manipulating light and sound to have an impact on the viewer. Aesthetica sat down to discuss the show with Curator, Bogomir Doringer.

A: What was your starting point for Still Processing? Where did the idea come from, and did the concept lead the selection, or did the artworks shape the final theme?

BD: The idea was to showcase artists whose practice developed on the fringe – in experimental spaces, art festivals and clubs – who have since entered more academic or traditional art spaces. These are creatives whose practice has evolved into a craft that is uniquely theirs. The question for me was: what is craft when we think about new media, kinetic sculptures or software? How can we display works on a screen, but also dissolve the screen and give precedence to what happens in our minds? Still Processing is about the way we are wired and how we cognitively process audiovisual inputs. The title came after a series of long discussions, and I think it’s perfect for the times in which we live. We are still processing – there's so much happening and there is an overload of inputs. In Nxt Museum, there are many different spaces, with transition rooms in-between them. The architectural layout of the museum also directed the way exhibition developed.

A: The research and work of Rosa Menkman seems to be central to the show. Why did you choose to spotlight her?

BD: It was very important to give a big stake to Rosa Menkman, an artist who has followed image development for decades. Her projects helped shape the narrative and the flow of the exhibition – in a way, she’s presenting a show inside of a show. Each of her spaces addresses a certain phase of image-making, whether it’s .jpeg, AI generated images or bias in training data. What's interesting about her work is its sense

“The

question was: what is craft when we think about new media, kinetic sculpture or software? How can we display works on a screen, but also dissolve the screen and give precedence to what happens in our minds?”

of storytelling. Something complex and technical becomes philosophical, existential – almost like a love story. You can follow her very technical research from an angle of dramaturgy. It speaks to the heart and mind – this was important for communicating complex processes to a broader audience.

A: It feels like a number of the artworks in Still Processing are underpinned by key historical, literary or scientific moments. Can you give an example of this in action?

BD: In 2019, Katie Bouman made a scientific breakthrough that allowed us to visualise the unseeable: the first-ever image of a black hole processed by a new algorithm. I was fascinated when Bouman’s image was created, because it really shifted understandings of photography. Multiple different satellites had to come together to compose that one image. It reminds us that we don't have a final render of our reality, and that what we see as "truth" is still processing, as new developments come along. Children of the Light, the Amsterdam-based artist duo of Christopher Gabriel and Arnout Hulskamp, found inspiration in this now-viral visual.

A: What was the result? How did they turn the image into installation, and what is the experience of viewing it like?

BD: ALL-TOGETHER-NOW is a line of five identical rings, exhibited in a very long corridor. They are choreographed to move until they reach moments of synchronicity. Whilst you're standing there, you eventually see a deep, dark space emerge. The object is moving so slowly that it also causes you to change pace. It confuses your perception of space; the only way to reach the exit is once the object gets out of your way. Sometimes you're not sure if it is hollow, or if

you’re looking at a mirror. The tone and temperature of the light in the work shifts over time, from amber to pure white, creating an illusion of seeing the spectrum of colours. It's interesting how our bodies and minds process that colour, because you can feel the warmth of an object that doesn't have heat. ALL-TOGETHER-NOW is an absolutely moving artwork.

A: Why does it have such a profound impact on people?

BD: Rings, especially those that glow, are present in religious iconography and have been part of our shared human history for such a long time. They are iconic and really seem to do something to our brains and bodies. On paper, you can't imagine that what kind of physical impact this installation will have, and how it will define the space. But it creates a moment of togetherness. Gathering around these large suspended rings becomes almost ceremonial. Children of the Light has exhibited in churches, on the stage, in clubs. No matter where it is, they manage to gather a group together.

A: Duration, by Boris Acket, is another one of the show's expansive sensory artworks. How does it look and feel?

BD: Duration is a very large-scale installation, and it asks a very big question: how do we experience time? It’s a huge responsive grid, with pillars, LED screens and a custombuilt echo system that deconstructs singular audio inputs into patterns and interplays them with light. The sounds in the space were collected from field trips that Acket made. It might feel very electronic, but the source material actually comes from drops of water in caves, or the ocean. What's fascinating is that you're inside of an extremely heavily technological space, but it has a comforting feeling – like a kind

Previous page: Boris Acket, Duration , (2025). Light installation, co-produced by Studio Raito, Bob Roijen, Corey Schneider with music by Boris Acket. Photo: Maarten Nauw.
Left: Children of the Light, ALL-TOGETHERNOW (2025). Installation, with sound by Sébastien Robert, engineering by Luuk Meints, electronics by Diederik Schoorl. Photo: Maarten Nauw.

of digital forest. During the opening, we had live instruments playing and the experience could have lasted for hours – the audience was captivated. Over the course of the exhibition’s run, Duration will be activated by various different music collectives and visual artists through our residency programme.

A: Debates around digital art often hinge on the idea of machines replacing authentic input. How do you strike a balance between high-tech and human at Nxt Museum?

BD: When I’m curating, and in my own artistic practice, it all comes down to the conscious and unconscious ways we, as humans, both collectively and individually, navigate through times of change – sometimes very radical ones, like wars or conflicts. These artworks are not always about demonstrating how technology works, but instead ask: how can we evoke certain feelings, sensations and meaning whilst using it? Or, can we create entirely new tools for artistic expression? For Nxt Museum, it’s important for us to retain that human aspect and question the evolution of technology. I'm not sure if we always achieve that, but I do think that the dramaturgy of the whole exhibition offers some kind of solutions to machine dominance. Right now, with Facebook, Amazon and Elon Musk in the White House, we're observing that people are resisting technological developments, like AI, because they are related to right wing political agendas.

A: What have you discovered during the process of putting this show together? Has anything challenged you?

BD: I’ve discovered there is a big gap in understanding how technology works, even though it's such a big part of our lives. Huge corporations, and the way that they develop their

products, have allowed a kind of myth to proliferate. In 2025, we still have same questions as 20 years ago. And it's not a generational gap, it is just that we are kept in that mode of not knowing. We depend on technology that is mostly based in one place, and we are no longer able to open our devices to see how they work. The iPhone, for example, has become a kind of black box. That kind of thing leads to speculations or misleading conspiracy theories. We need to investigate alternative tools – like where our email is based, for example.

A: Are there any trends or developments in the art and technology space that you're particularly excited about?

BD: One of the main topics that has interested me over the years is the ritual of dancing and masking in post-9/11 society, and how we feel about technology when it's used for surveillance. Through new media art, there has been a revival and reinvention of theatre and dance. It's interesting how these environments can activate the body and encourage people to re-connect, both with themselves and one another.

A: How have audiences responded to Still Processing? How does it compare to other shows you have curated?

BD: It feels like the exhibition, and its title, have really resonated with people. It’s a show that questions what you know – or don't know – about yourself, and how the mind works. I’ve curated four exhibitions at Nxt Museum, including UFO - Unidentified Fluid Other (2022 - 2023), which explored who we are becoming in virtual worlds. Still Processing leaves a lot of space for interpretation. Every room is so different. The artworks are on screen, but they really do break and deconstruct that resolution. This is may be our best show to date.

Words Eleanor Sutherland

Processing Nxt Museum, Amsterdam Until 5 October nxtmuseum.com

Right: Gabey Tjon a Tham, Red Horizon, (2014). Light installation, co-produced by TodaysArt & Museum of Transitory Arts (MOTA), supported by Stroom Den Haag and Creative Industries Fund NL, Software development: Marcus Graf, Mechanical engineering support: Bram Vreven. Photo: Maarten Nauw.

Staged Realities

Chou Ching-Hui

Chou Ching-Hui’s (b. 1965) Animal Farm is a series of large-scale, diorama-like scenes, which holds up a mirror to contemporary society. The Taiwanese photographer takes cues from zoos – their connotations of voyeurism and entrapment, he says: “it's a metaphor for the cage of modern life.” The staged works, shot using 8 x 10 format colour film, tackle many of the big issues facing the world: mental health, reproductive rights, capitalism and pervasive technology. These pictures are extremely intricate, with each one layering different characters and hidden details to build a rich narrative. They are eerie, hyperreal, unsettling – but also fascinating. Chou, a photojournalist-turned-artist, recently showed the work at Photo London with CHINI Gallery, Taipei. Chou invites you to inspect each work carefully. In today's fast-paced society, this is a chance to slow down, search for clues, and find meaning in a theatrical world that mirrors our own. chouchinghui-studio.com | chinigallery.com

Chou Ching Hui, Animal Farm No. 17, (2014). Image courtesy of the artist.
Chou Ching Hui, Animal Farm No. 2 (2014). Image courtesy of the artist.
Chou Ching Hui, Animal Farm No. 8 , (2014). Image courtesy of the artist.
Chou Ching Hui, Animal Farm No. 6 (2014). Image courtesy of the artist.
Chou Ching Hui, Animal Farm No. 1, (2014). Image courtesy of the artist.
Chou Ching Hui, Animal Farm No. 4 (2014). Image courtesy of the artist.
Chou Ching Hui, Animal Farm No. 5 , (2014). Image courtesy of the artist.

Spatial Immersion

THE

COLLECTIVE DEVELOPS RESPONSIVE ART INSTALLATIONS THAT COMBINE LIGHT, SOUND AND TECHNOLOGY, OFFERING AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING EXPERIENCE. Squidsoup

Light becomes form. Sound becomes space. These are the building blocks of Squidsoup, a pioneering collective whose immersive environments invite us to enter fields of data-driven light and spatialised sound. Since its formation in 1997, Squidsoup has redefined the potential of digital installation, creating multi-sensory experiences that blur boundaries between architecture, performance, sculpture and technology. Their landmark work Submergence – a shimmering matrix of thousands of suspended LEDs – has toured the world, exhibited at major venues including Burning Man Festival, Canary Wharf and Vivid Sydney, as well as in front of thousands at Alexandra Palace and Sydney Opera House in collaboration with musician Four Tet. Their installations are transformed by the context they inhabit and the people who pass through them – whether in a Gothic cathedral or a desert nightscape. Squidsoup stands alongside collectives like teamLab and artists such as James Turrell, Pipilotti Rist and Refik Anadol in shaping a new kind of visual language – one that is immersive, reactive and participatory. These works do not sit passively on walls. Instead, they breathe, shift and respond. The boundaries between art and tech have never been more blurred. In a review of Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet at London’s Tate Modern, Guardian art critic Laura Cumming described: “A poignant and often beautiful vision of human creativity engaging with machines.” This is the essence of Squidsoup: they are collaborating, ideating and playing with technology – bringing people closer together in the process. Here, Founder Anthony Rowe speaks in-depth ahead of Submergence coming to York Art Gallery.

A: How did Squidsoup begin? What was the first project?

AR: Squidsoup started in 1997. It’s been through a few iterations – morphing, growing and shrinking with the times. Its aim has always been to create meaningful, digitally mediated experiences that elicit an emotional response. Early projects used the media of the time: CD-ROMs, websites, screen and projection. Our first exhibited work, Altzero, was a series of navigable virtual sound environments that took various forms, including an interactive flythrough experience at the ICA (1999). The current incarnation of Squidsoup began when Submergence launched at Galleri ROM, Oslo, in 2013. As the piece gained momentum, a team coalesced around large-scale walkthrough LED installations and performances. This required a wide range of skills: art, design, technical production, coding, event production – and a particular mindset.

A: Where do you start with making one of these pieces?

AR: It’s a many-staged process. Most of our works originate from a single idea – an abstract or generic concept – that we then iterate and experiment with until something fully formed emerges. That can then be adapted into several distinct works. In some senses, the technology and hardware are the canvas, paint and brushes. The artwork is like a painting in space and time, underpinned by a conceptual framework.

A: Can you walk us though an example of this process?

AR: We developed an audiovisual unit called AudioWAVE, because we wanted a sound to match each individual point of light in our works, and we also wanted the audio to physi-

“Our works originate from a single idea or generic concept, that we experiment with until something fully formed emerges. The technology and hardware are the canvas, paint and brushes. The artwork is like a painting in space and time.”

cally move. Our ears are just as adept as our eyes at detecting location, so stereo speakers just don’t cut it. We imagined voices moving through space. Eventually, this became Wave, commissioned for Salisbury Cathedral's From Darkness to Light (2018 - 2019) show It contained over 500 speakers and spawned choral melodies and harmonies. This spatialised sound system has given rise to other ideas and projects.

A: What’s the story behind Submergence? How is it constructed, and what is it like to experience the work in-situ?

AR: I remember looking at a tiny 3 x 3 x 3 LED cube in about 2001 and thinking: that is a 3D medium! Imagine if it was huge, and I could walk through it. Imagine if, rather than blinking red, green and blue (which is all they could do at the time), the LEDs could be controlled like an exploded screen, in a shared space. It took several attempts and prototypes, as well as my PhD, to get it to work reliably (and not electrocute audiences). When we finally switched on the original version of Submergence, we knew it was interesting. It completely transformed the gallery. This was liquid architecture: virtual form in physical space. The piece comprises hundreds of suspended strands of individually controllable LED orbs. It uses standard technologies but in numbers that, at the time, raised a few eyebrows. It's a walkthrough experience, so it fills up and dominates a space, but people can navigate it freely.

A: Submergence has been exhibited over 100 times on six continents. Which locations or venues stand out to you?

AR: There are so many amazing memories. The first one was in Oslo, at Galleri ROM in 2013. Then we put Submergence on floating pontoons for Leeds Light Night and took it to

Secret Garden Party. The first time in a cathedral was Salisbury in 2015. It's been shown in several weird places: on a bridge almost half a mile above the river in Cleveland, Ohio; on an armoured car in the middle of the desert for Burning Man; and suspended from a giant geodesic dome in Athens. There’s also the enormity and joy of performing live events with Four Tet, particularly at Alexandra Palace. But it’s the people we’ve met, the amazing cultures and the friendships from across those six continents, that we cherish most of all.

A: What kind of reactions does it receive, and why is that?

AR: In terms of visitor experience, I think the piece works at several levels, which is possibly why people like it. From a distance it aesthetically pleasing – a 3D moving chimaeric light work, almost like a massive hologram, with digitally generated forms and textures moving through it. Once inside, the experience transforms into something more visceral, tactile and shared: entrancing, engaging and immersive. Finally, and this applies to much of our work, its dynamic but abstract nature means that it is open to individual interpretation. People draw commonalities in its atmospheres and presence, but the exact meaning seems to vary from person to person.

A: You’ve exhibited on some of the biggest stages worldwide. How does the context – cultural, architectural, or geographic – affect how you adapt or present a project?

AR: Our projects are nearly all modular, consisting of numerous – hundreds, thousands – of identical units that work together to create large-scale choreographed productions. They can be assembled in response to a particular space. During the planning phase, we will take the architectural and

Previous page: Submergence , (2023).
City of Light Jyvälskylä, Finland.
Image: Michelle Leck / Squidsoup.
Left: Submergence (2023). City of Light Jyvälskylä, Finland.
Image: Michelle Leck / Squidsoup.

spatial features, people flow, anticipated audience sizes and type of event into account. Aside from the obvious – ambient sound levels, entry and exit points and so on – we also consider why people are there. An urban intervention where people are passing through a transitional space would need a very different approach to a live music event, or installation in an art gallery. Our work is usually quite abstract, inviting dialogue and asking people to extract their own meaning and emotional responses. These discussions and interpretations vary across the world, and from one person to another.

A: What are your thoughts on unconventional arts spaces?

AR: The gallery has several advantages as a venue for exhibition, and we love showing our work in these spaces. But it also has limitations. A gallery is a highly controlled place – effectively a pilgrimage site, where people are already mentally prepared and receptive. It is controlled and monitored; works are unlikely to get damaged or be overcome by ambient noise, uncontrolled crowds or vandalism. However, it caters primarily to a specific demographic, and you are often restricted in what you can do – for example, whether smoke and haze are allowed. We want as many people from as many different backgrounds as possible to see our work.

A: How do you achieve that? What methods do you use?

AR: We deliberately make our projects as robust and as element-proof as possible, so we can show them outdoors and in a wide range of places. Each time we put a piece up it is unique; it is in dialogue with its surroundings, is porous and mixes with its environment and the people in it, creating a different result each time. We show at winter light festivals,

around stately homes or botanical gardens where it forms an interesting contrast to the organic forms of trees and plants; in cathedrals and building sites, on water and in deserts. Each instance brings its own surprises, synergies and relationships.

A: What does the immersive art space look like today?

AR: Winter light festivals and indoor “immersive experiences” are both interesting developments; we actively engage with both. We’ve done solo indoor shows in Bristol and London that have been well attended and well received. We have learnt a lot from them and are currently planning to take the exhibition on tour. Competition is increasing though, and not all “immersive” events are of the same quality. As these experiences become more familiar, audiences will demand ever more wow factor, requiring higher budgets and investments.

A: How do you, as artists, navigate a changing world?

AR: We strongly believe it’s important to not get overly stuck on the technology – innovation and investment are only one part of the picture. As artists, we need to remember that the art is more than the equipment used to build it, and audiences are amenable to a finely executed delicate idea as well as a huge pyrotechnic extravaganza. We are using the opportunities of showing multiple works concurrently to take visitors on a journey, to be transported to somewhere different and give them the chance to breathe and see the world from a slightly different perspective. We are trying not to get involved in a technological arms race – although our work is dependent on these tools, it is not about the hardware, and nor is it foregrounded; we would like audiences to look beyond all of that, and see the emotional content beneath.

Right: Aeolian Light, (2014) by Squidsoup. Commissioned by Quays Culture.
Photo: Joel Chester Fildes.

Undersea Geometries

“There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature,” is a famous quote attributed to the architect Antoni Gaudí (1852 - 1926). The same idea – of human-built constructions in contrast to organic forms – underpins The Shape of Cosmos, the new series from Ukrainian-German diver and photographer Alexej Sachov (b. 1972). “Geometric shapes are rare underwater,” the artist says. “This series, with its straight, plastic figures in artificial colours, captured in weightlessness during scuba dives, illustrates how human creations are foreign to the natural world.” Here, we see fluorescent shapes – triangles, circles and rectangles – floating in a dark sea of stars, pulling together and drifting apart in many different configurations. Across his various bodies of work, all produced beneath the waves, Sachov envisions a world where synthetic objects and pollutants replace living ecosystems. This is an invitation to reflect on how we treat the planet – and the kind of future our actions are shaping. sachov-art.com

Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #1, (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #2 (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #3 (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #4 , (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #5 , (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #7, (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #8 , (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #6 (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.
Alexej Sachov, The Shape of Cosmos #10 , (2025). Image courtesy of the artist.

Shared Optimism

In 100 Ideas That Changed Photography, author Mary Warner Marien catalogues selfdocumentary as idea number 77. “The photographic self-portrait may conceal as well as a reveal,” Marien writes. “It is an investigation as well as a representation of identity.” This is certainly true of Fares Micue’s (b. 1987) delightful body of work, in which the self-taught Spanish artist appears against brightly coloured backdrops, her face obscured by balloons, origami butterflies, paper cranes and blooming flowers. The pictures are full of symbolism, delivering a message of personal growth, self-love and empowerment. “I want my images to give hope and teach people to appreciate themselves, to love, dream and believe that everything is possible." You can’t help but be inspired – not only by Micue’s missive, but by her creativity and attention to detail. Every element, from props and framing to colour matched styling, is carefully curated and delivered perfectly. @faresmicuephotography

Fares Micue, Growing Wild, (2019). Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue,
Fares Micue, Yellow Moon (2022). Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue, Blue Moon, (2022). Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue,
Fares Micue,
Fares Micue, Pink Moon, (2022). Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue, Pieces of the Sky, (2021). Image courtesy of the artist.
Fares Micue,
Fares Micue,
Fares Micue, Lost in the Starry Night , (2021). Image courtesy of the artist.

Image as Construct

Felicity Hammond

AS DEFINITIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGE, THE ARTIST TRACKS LINKS BETWEEN GEOLOGICAL AND DATA MINING, IMAGES AND MACHINE LEARNING.

Every day, we open our phones, toggle between different feeds, then slide back to another screen – an iPad, TV or laptop. A resounding thought emerges from this constant back-and-forth: “I just can’t keep up.” In May 2025, the writer Jia Tolentino published a widely resonant New Yorker piece titled My Brain Finally Broke. She unpacks the dystopian, paralysing exhaustion of carrying devices with literally endless information that we can’t even parse for truth. She brings Richard Seymour’s book The Twittering Machine (2019) into the discussion, arguing how our collective addiction to these systems occurs “in a society that is busily producing horrors.” Various journalistic outlets partially trace this phenomenon to the accelerating proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data across massive – and selfish – corporations. There’s a term for this: the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Popularised in 2016 by World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab, it’s a catchall for the major technological changes occurring globally in the 21st century, spiralling into a form of industrial capitalism characterised by AI, advanced robotics and gene editing. It’s worrying that so much of this is happening unchecked – or checked (read: controlled) by powerhungry and irresponsible people. It relies on the fact that the processes behind them are so specialised, meaning opaque. We don’t know the why and the how. And the more in the dark we remain, the more these technologies can be used against our wellbeing and interests, even our very rights as humans.

Felicity Hammond brings a torchlight into the shadows. An established artist based in South London, Hammond fuses photography with sculpture, installation and various media.

“I am interested in how photographic processes / the printed image is entangled with the material world. Whether that’s through the way it is used in large-scale advertising campaigns and plastered around the city, or how photographic technologies emerge from the extraction of raw materials … The practice I have developed treats the image as one component amongst other objects, surfaces and technologies.”

Hammond was born in 1988 in Birmingham. She received an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 2014, then a PhD in Contemporary Art Research from Kingston University in 2021 (she is now a senior lecturer in the MA Photography programme there). She became fascinated with how photography is a networked medium that, in a postmodern society, is constantly touching us in some form or another. “When my practice started developing at art school, I was turning my lens towards quite low-fi computer generated images that imagined future urban sites. There was a key early moment when computer-generated marketing images started to suddenly dominate the urban landscape. It was in the early 2010s, and many parts of London were subjected to fast-paced and aggressive urban re-generation projects.”

These themes formed the core of Hammond’s first institutional solo show, Remains in Development, at C/O Berlin and Kunsthal Extra City Antwerp in 2020 - 2021. Since then, she has exhibited far and wide, from Beijing Media Art Biennale and Transmediale in Berlin, to the Centre for Visual Art in Denver, Bologna’s Fondazione MAST and Garage Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Over the years, she has won and been short and longlisted for key awards, fellowships and grants,

“It drills down into the processes behind computational image making, exposing the nerve endings of this sprawling and sinister ecosystem of land, resources and labour upon which machine learning software relies.”

such as the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, FOAM Talent and the Lumen Art Prize. Though her work has traversed many different places, physically and conceptually, London remains an anchor point. “I am really influenced by the outskirts of the city – the post-industrial landscape of London, sites that I have occupied for the last 15 years.”

Along with her environment, Hammond is inspired by science fiction, the mechanics of which influence her own grammar as an artist for whom “the power of speculative language … is a key focus.” She cites J.G. Ballard, as well as Mark Fisher, who she calls “instrumental” to her growth – “his thoughts on failed futures and pastiche have really informed the way I think about how digital technologies are operating on these kind of mediocre levels.” Tom McCarthy’s Remainder (2005) is another reference. Hammond also looks to visual artists –like Anne Hardy, Anthea Hamilton, Heather Phillipson and Laura Grace Ford – for their meticulous world-building skills.

One of Hammond’s latest bodies of work, 18 months in the making, is Variations, commissioned via the Ampersand/ Photoworks Fellowship, a biennial opportunity for mid-career artists. The project is an evolving, four-part photographic installation. It drills down into the processes behind computational image-making and generative AI, exposing the nerve endings of a sprawling, sinister ecosystem of land, resources and labour, upon which the machine learning software relies. Variations spans four venues: Photoworks Weekender in Brighton, QUAD in Derby as part of FORMAT International Photography Festival; The Photographers' Gallery in London (27 June - 28 September); and Stills: Centre for Photography in Edinburgh (7 November - 7 February). Each location offers a unique and evolving chapter of the project, representing

a particular aspect of generative AI's construction, like the shipping of raw materials, extraction and surveillance, model collapse via feedback loops of data, archive and waste. “The curatorial framework mimics the four variations often provided by text to image generative AI software. Rather than producing a single exhibition that tours four venues, I wanted the work to reflect the variations on a single idea / image that contemporary technology offers us.” Eventually, Hammond will compile this process in a four-chapter print publication.

The project’s second part, on display now, is V2: Rigged, a massive feat constructed with powder coated steel and aluminium, MDF, inkjet printed PVC banner and vinyl, paint, cable, camera, mirrors and PLA prints. It’s the megamachine cracked open: audiences must come face to face with the intricacies of how machine learning actually works – a combination of various brutal extractions – brought together by the rig, a piece of supportive equipment used in mining as well as photography. V2: Rigged appears partly as a drill head, processing plant, and camera: a composite installation-machine. It’s a complex piece that gets more impressive when you consider it is a part of an even larger whole. For the next chapter, V3: Model Collapse, Hammond is making “re-enactments” of AI generated pictures, that are themselves variations of V2: Rigged. “It demonstrates the hallucinatory potential of images made via systems trained on AI generated visuals. These particular works are made in the studio where I am making stage sets, painting and collage, all of which reenters photographic space via the camera.” The final chapter, V4: Repository, will examine the role of data storage centres. Hammond’s installation stands out in more ways than one. It is currently showing at the FORMAT International Photog-

Previous page:
Felicity Hammond, Fragment 04 , (2018), from Arcades Image courtesy of the artist.
Left:
Felicity Hammond, Fragment 08 , (2018), from Arcades Image courtesy of the artist.

hibit. For 2025, they are Christopher Gregory-Rivera, Jenna Garrett, Lo Lai Lai Natalie, Sujata Setia and Thero Makepe. Their practices span topics such as domestic abuse in South Asia, farming in Hong Kong, and Apartheid in South Africa. The themes of Hammond's Variations recur across the wider FORMAT Festival programme. Xueyi Huang (Snow)'s No.27 Tong Poo Road is a surrealist AI-generated video that reflects upon the old house in Guangdong Province where the artist was born. Twenty years ago, it was demolished to make way for a new residential area. Aside from illuminating a younger generation’s perspective on urban development and family history, it also reflects on the role of the camera. This work does not demonise AI, nor present itself as simply defined by the medium; it asks us to consider what AI’s capacity for expressing sentimentality and personal storytelling might be.

Hammond has noticed, like most of us, a shift towards AI-generated images becoming more commonplace. Careless renderings, produced by machine learning-based programmes, are being used across a range of contexts, including architecture. There's a through-line here to Hammond's earlier works, like Capital Growth (2015), Post Production (2018) and Arcades (2018), with the latter in particular forming a precursor to Variations. The project critically examined computer generated images used for commercial develop-

mond adds. Still, its growth appears ferocious. Plus, there are other risks, most saliently the already degrading climate. In a 2024 Forbes article, Cindy Gordon reported that “AI's projected water usage could hit 6.6 billion m³ by 2027” due to increasing demand for services resulting in more water needed for cooling data centres. Such facilities already guzzle an enormous amount, “using cooling towers and air mechanisms to dissipate heat, causing up to 9 litres of water to evaporate per kWh of energy used." This is beyond urgent.

Hammond’s work continues to evolve in tandem with her own perspectives on developments in AI, CGI and machine learning, and it is a useful source to help viewers digest all this rapid and frankly scary change – the perils of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The artist shares that she is now developing projects on cars. “I have been interested in the way that the car has become another camera in society – another tool of surveillance. As autonomous vehicle technologies have developed, the car extracts data, images the environment in the form of LiDar scans, object detection technologies and 3D mapping, and also relies on the images that it builds of the landscape to function.” Beyond the car, she’d like to look at other technologies, from aircraft to military. “Operational images are at the centre of my investigation here, and there continues to be new photographic applications to explore.”

Words Vamika Sinha

Variations

The Photographers' Gallery, London 27 June - 28 September

thephotographersgallery.org.uk

Felicity Hammond, Post Production, (2018). Image courtesy of the artist.

Ethereal Landscape

Reuben Wu’s (b. 1975) images are instantly recognisable. The artist is a National Geographic photographer, and he is known for painting with light. Wu uses drones and long exposures to draw halos around mountains, or render glowing geometric shapes above landscapes, including glaciers, deserts and salt flats. He is driven by a desire to show familiar scenes from an alternative perspective. The new series Thin Places and SIREN are the latest contributions to that goal. Shimmering white veils drop down from the sky, creating the illusion of a barrier between worlds. These series mark a new direction for Wu. “Whilst my other work features decisive lines, these forms surrender to their environment." Patterns are shaped not only by human hands, but by natural phenomena – including waves washing up on the shoreline. The compositions are eerily tactile; you almost want to reach out and touch the soft fabric, or to peel it back to see what lies behind the curtain. reubenwu.com

Image courtesy of Reuben Wu.
Image courtesy of Reuben Wu.
Image courtesy of Reuben Wu.
Image courtesy of Reuben Wu.
Image courtesy of Reuben Wu.

Exhibition Reviews

1Ed Atkins

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CREATIONS

It was a wise move for Tate Britain to substitute "Loss", the proposed title of their ongoing Ed Atkins retrospective, with the artist’s name itself. After all, it’s the self – not just as subject, but as a material, medium and mirage – that is really on show. The exhibition gathers some 60 works from the past 15 years, charting a shift from Atkins’ ironic, digitally rendered grief to something more tender, if less interesting: earnestness. There is a myriad of computer-generated videos, animations, sculptures and installations on display, but it’s the tender tokens of real life that are his strongest work: hundreds of Post-it notes for his daughter ("the best things I’ve ever made") and gouache paintings of bedsheets.

Sincerity, though, is never quite safe in Atkins’ hands. Take Pianowork 2 (2023): a piano plays itself whilst an avatar mimics the motion, trembling with effort as it struggles to

2A nicka Yi

BIOLOGY IN THE POSTHUMAN AGE

Anicka Yi’s landmark exhibition There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One offers a compelling new vision for contemporary art. This debut solo presentation charts nearly two decades of practice through almost 40 works, including newly commissioned pieces that extend her radical enquiry into the interface of consciousness, biology and technology. Born in Seoul in 1971 and based in New York, Yi has long challenged the conventions of visual culture by working with AI, bacteria, scent and tempura-fried flora. Her work is immersive, unsettling and deeply philosophical – interrogating how humans define life and intelligence in an age of synthetic biology and machine cognition. The viewer enters a world where kelp pods glow with internal light, animatronic sculptures drift like microscopic lifeforms, and the air itself becomes a medium of meaning through custom fragrances.

3World Press Photo

STORIES THAT MATTER

The World Press Photo Foundation has recognised, exhibited and championed the important work of international photojournalists since 1955. This year, the prize celebrates those who step outside the news cycle and look more deeply at both prominent and overlooked stories. The show is as expansive in its exhibitions as it is in content, opening at De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, before travelling to 60 locations worldwide. It brings today's most pressing issues – climate change, migration, oppression, war – to millions of people.

It's this variety of locations and themes that enables the photographs to paint a full picture of modern society, and speak to one another. Images of protests and uprisings in El Salvador, Georgia, Haiti, Kenya and Myanmar, sit alongside portraits of those in political power in the USA and Germany. Elsewhere, Oliver Farshi’s A Place to Die depicts a house in

play the right notes. The piece sets a web of "oscillations" – one of Atkins’s oft-used terms – into motion: between "human and avatar" and "CAPTCHA and Turing test", as Ben Lerner notes in the catalogue. Viewers are prompted to wonder if the avatar is really playing music, or if it is just simulating the shape of suffering. Is this grief, or a glossy proxy?

Elsewhere, Atkins confesses freely. In Nurses Come and Go, But None for Me (2025), Toby Jones reads the diary of Atkins’ dying father to a young audience who emote on cue. It’s confession as currency; vulnerability in exchange for attention. But when Atkins complicates this formula, the work shines. The Worm (2021) overlays a real phone call with his mother onto a CGI figure, who cannot match the warmth of her words. In this spectacular retrospective, honesty strains against simulation as Atkins asks what it might mean to mean something.

Words

Katie Tobin

Tate Britain, London

Until 25 August

tate.org.uk

The installation Mr. Taxi for GG (2012), featuring a rotting bouquet as a surrogate head, exemplifies Yi’s interest in decay. Elsewhere, the show also introduces Each Branch of Coral Holds Up the Light of the Moon (2024), a video generated by her own Emptiness software – an algorithm designed to simulate her creative logic beyond her own biological life. Yi’s powerful contribution to contemporary discourse lies in her ability to dissolve disciplinary boundaries. This is not an illustration of science, but an act of speculative fiction –opening new pathways for how art can imagine, and even simulate, alternative futures. In a cultural moment defined by ecological crisis and the acceleration of AI, this exhibition speaks directly to the increasingly urgent need for new modes of co-existence and creativity. It is a sensory, intellectual and emotional encounter with the future of art itself.

Words Shirley Stevenson

UCCA, Beijing Until 15 June ucca.org.cn

Washington where people with terminal illnesses spend their final hours, before drinking a medication that ends their lives.

The overall winner for this year is Doha-based Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf’s portrait of Mahmoud Ajjour, a young boy who was severely injured while fleeing an Israeli attack in Gaza. The photo of the sunlit child, who lost both arms in the devastating incident, is a moving example of the lives that are impacted by the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Executive Director Joumana El Zein Khoury, says: “We live in a time when it is easier than ever to look away, to scroll past, to disengage. But these images do not let us do that.”

This year’s World Press Photo cuts through the noise, encouraging audiences to bear witness to uncomfortable truths and confront their place in the system. It is by looking these realities in the eye, that society can begin to build a better future.

Words Emma Jacob

De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam Until 21 September nieuwekerk.nl

4Viviane Sassen

T HIS BODY MADE OF STARDUST

“All photographs are memento mori,” wrote Susan Sontag. This quote that sets the tone for Viviane Sassen’s quietly transcendent new exhibition, This Body Made of Stardust. On view at Collezione Maramotti as part of Fotografia Europea’s 20th edition, this is Sassen’s most extensive showing in Italy to date. More than 50 works and a film, self-curated from two decades of creative practice, offer visitors an immersive contemplation on life, death, memories and transformation. Sassen, long championed by Aesthetica, has always worked between worlds – photography and sculpture, fashion and fine art, dream and decay. Here, her visual language reaches new emotional and conceptual depth. Dislocated bodies ripple through colour fields, submerged in water or cloaked in shadow. Palms, fungi, bark – all become poetic stand-ins for breath and burial. These are not photographs of fixed meaning, but of real feeling: abstract, elemental and intimate.

5Eileen Perrier

A THOUSAND SMALL STORIES

In the landmark monograph Face Time (2021), Philip Prodger describes the portraitist as an “excavator of truth, revealing qualities of which the sitter might not even be aware, or may wish to hide.” This feels like an apt way to understand British photographer Eileen Perrier (b. 1974), whose portraits form the heart of A Thousand Small Stories. The show is her first UK retrospective, currently on display at Autograph, London. Spanning three decades, Perrier’s images feature friends, family members and strangers who have allowed her intimate access to their world. Often working in makeshift studios, Perrier draws on both 19th century European and contemporary African studio portraiture to examine questions of identity and belonging. Though born in London, she is influenced by her Ghanaian and Dominican heritage – visible in early series like Ghana (1995–1996) and Red, Gold and Green (1997), which offer glimpses into personal spaces full of joy, comfort or quiet struggle. Nothing is varnished here:

6The Gatherers

GLOBAL WASTE LAID BARE

MoMA PS1’s ongoing group exhibition, The Gatherers, hosts a blink-and-you-will-miss-it work – a tiny gold nail banged into a white wall, titled Nail (2025). Installed above Selma Selman’s other much larger installation Motherboards (2025), which is composed of a generous pile of discarded keyboards, Nail's unassuming statement embodies the show’s overall sentiment perhaps better than any other artwork. The Amsterdam-based artist extracted the valuable material from computer central processing units in collaboration with her own family, who operate a scrap metal recycling business. There is an entanglement of value and disuse, disarming the viewer with the stark tactility of waste and the slippery feeling of transforming disgust into beauty. The museum's curator, Ruba Katrib, selected 14 artists who consider the debris, residue and excess of humanity's mental and physical obsessions. He Xiangyu’s Rock Tongue (2024) is an intriguing sculpture in which natural stones collected

The show’s power lies in its refusal to resolve. Sassen doesn’t offer narrative, but sensation. In doing so, she joins a lineage of contemporary artists – such as Zanele Muholi, Lorna Simpson – who explore the mutable body. Yet, Sassen’s ambiguity is her signature; it is a through line that runs across her oeuvre. She lingers on the threshold: between form and formlessness, the physical and the cosmic.

Grounded in earth, dust and light, This Body Made of Stardust speaks to ritual, grief, tenderness and the strange beauty of impermanence. As the festival marks its 20th year – a moment of reflection – Sassen invites us to look again, more slowly, more openly. This exhibition matters. In an era of visual noise, it offers quiet. In a culture of speed, it offers pause. And in a modern world increasingly defined by certainty, it gently honours the sublime in not knowing. We are all dust, Sassen reminds audiences. But we are also light.

Words Anna Müller

Collezione Maramotti

Until 27 July collezionemaramotti.org

whether it’s two women seated on a couch in front of a cabinet overflowing with tableware, or a man sitting on a chair, displaying a quiet fortitude despite his meagre possessions. As for Perrier’s subjects, they are "aware" but unguarded. There’s the rebellion of teenage girls in When am I Gonna Stop Being Wise Beyond My Years (2023); the unapologetic gaptoothed smiles in Grace (2000); and the bold self-expression on display in Afro Hair and Beauty Show (1998–2003). Each subverts traditionally held ideas of what is deemed beautiful and acceptable in society. Portraiture can leave us wondering: what directions did the photographer give to the sitter? In Perrier’s case, the answer seems simple – “just be yourself.” Statistics reveal that in 2025, around 2.1 trillion photos will be taken worldwide; that is 61,400 photos every single second. Amid the deluge of filtered and performative images, Perrier’s portraits are an important reminder that sometimes, “be yourself” is the only message that people need to hear.

Words Shyama Laxman

Autograph, London Until 13 September autograph.org.uk

from rivers are fastidiously placed within metal rings. Visitors find themselves inspecting each separate rock, discovering their unique erosion-related patinas. It is a piece that sits somewhere between obsessiveness and meditation. Elsewhere, in Backdrop (2025), Ser Serpas presents a similarly engaging display of found objects – this time, items which have all lost their former purpose, like an abandoned plastic seesaw. They haunt the gallery space with a spectral materiality – left rotten, mouldy, dirty and broken – oscillating between recognition and obscurity. The piece expands upon a previous installation shown at Whitney Biennial last year. Unlike the wide array of Serpas’ poetic clutter, Selman’s keyboards above the gilded nail thrill in their uniformity –hypnotising sameness also shrouds the trashed computer devices, humming the bygone sounds of tapping fingers. It is a visceral reminder that the past, and the items made there, do not cease to exist. They shape every aspect of the future.

Words Osman Can Yerebakan

MoMA PS1, New York Until 6 October momaps1.org

1Happyend

Emerging from the shadow of a famous parent is never easy, but Japanese filmmaker Neo Sora elegantly does so with his debut narrative feature, Happyend. It arrives just a year after he directed Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus, which captured a concert performed by his father in the final months of his life. Sakamoto, musician, pianist and composer, is remembered as one of the greatest talents of his generation. He created memorable scores for films like The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Sora, wisely, got comparisons out of the way by directing Opus, leaving him free to move unimpeded into Happyend, which he wrote. Set in Tokyo, in the near-future, it’s a coolly restrained work that looks to show a world we already know: where cameras watch our every move. It begins as a high-school principal (Shiro Sano) is left aghast when he finds his sports car has been upended

3Lollipop

In recent years there’s been a flurry of debuts from young British women, many of whom have launched their filmmaking careers with distinctive and stylish takes on working class stories, from Charlotte Well’s Aftersun to Luna Carmoon’s Hoard. On the surface, DaisyMay Hudson’s Lollipop is part of this wave, but in fact there’s something distinctly and rather charmingly old fashioned about this film, a warm-hearted take on the kitchen sink genre, which feels more heavily indebted to Ken Loach or Mike Leigh, than Hudson’s edgier peers. Lollipop opens with a recorded phone message, the sound of two children speaking to their mother in prison. The woman is Molly (Posy Sterling), a single mother on the verge of release, after a period of imprisonment. Determined to change her life for the better, Molly seeks out her children, who have been take into foster care.

by pranksters. The school now uses state-of-the-art facial recognition to capture any child’s bad behaviour. Worse still, a points system is used to mark any miscreant down. How that affects the teens is shown through a tight group of friends, led by Kou (Yukito Hidaka) and Yuta (Hayato Kurihara), two techno-music nuts who revel in rebellion. The film never oversells the tech side of things. Really, it’s telling a coming-of-age story in which the Koreanborn Kou, Yuta and their friends learn to navigate a world, as we all must, beset by authority figures. Scored beautifully by Lia Ouyang Rusli, Sora ensures the narrative is perfectly in tune with the music (as you might expect, given his father’s influence), deploying it subtly throughout. It couldn’t be more appropriate, considering the electronic beats the young protagonists listen to are like their lifeblood. Music, Sora suggests, can conquer all

However, thanks to a volatile relationship with her alcoholic mother Sylvie (TerriAnn Cousins), Molly is left homeless and finds herself at risk of losing custody of her children entirely. The only ray of light in an increasingly desperate situation, is the reappearance of childhood friend Amina (Idil Ahmed), a fellow single mother, whose friendship offers a potential route to a better life. Hudson has explored similar thematic ground before in Half Way, an autobiographical documentary which charted the filmmaker’s own experiences of homelessness, and it’s perhaps this sincere personal connection that gives Lollipop its appealing sense of authenticity. The storytelling might be relatively straightforward, there’s something subversive about the film’s message, which ultimately builds to a quietly revolutionary vision of female collectivity in spite of institutional indifference.

Words Rachel Pronger

MetFilm metfilmstudio.com

Harvest opens with a field of tall grass blowing in the wind – then, a man's arm stretches out towards the sky, almost as if it too were budding straight from the earth. A montage follows: the figure prances and frolics through the field, rolls in dirt with bugs and dances in the reeds.

The film is adapted from Jim Crace's Booker Prizeshortlisted novel of the same name by Greek filmmaker Athina Tsangari, and spends a lot of time building a vision of a world where humans and nature are one. The man, whose name, it turns out, is Walter Thirsk, lives in a remote farming village near the Scottish border in the Middle Ages. The community, like Walter, seems to have sprouted straight from the very earth they tend. Tsangari captures the villagers as features of the landscape itself. Some shots are akin to Bruegel's chaotic peasant paintings, many are microscopically intimate, whilst others

give us the bird's eye view of the land and its inhabitants. They live by their own primal order – when intruders come to steal their crops, the men are put in the pillory, whilst the women's hair is shorn. To mark the harvest, they revel in a Bacchanalian, animalistic ritual, complete with eerie masks handmade with straw, bark and grass. But their traditional way of life is approaching extinction. The arrival of Mr. Quill, a map maker, signals the march of progress that promises to segregate humans from the natural world. He charts the land and, quite literally, puts their village on the map. Meanwhile, as a result of the Inclosure Act, this common land has a new legal owner who swiftly arrives to uproot the villagers. Crace's title, it seems, has a double meaning. Harvest is the story of the dawn of capitalism and the end of pastoral idyll. Tsangari tells it with slow, unflinching intimacy and brutality. 2Harvest

mubi.com

Meg Walters MUBI
Words
James Mottram
Modern Films modernfilms.com
ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI

On her fourth studio album, Gwenno Saunders channels all of her rich, wild and wonderful life experiences into a triumphant new avenue of songwriting. She dances between Cornish, English and Welsh, a combination that makes it easy for the listener to become enamoured by the beauty of the lilting language and the ethereal, angelic nature of it all. The album starts with a floating, otherworldly London 1757 before moving straight into Dancing on Volcanoes, which has echoes of Vampire Weekend and Sophie Ellis-Bextor – in all of the best ways. Gwenno usually starts electronically, but this was the first project where Saunders began writing on piano and the songs are richer and deeper for it. The dancing keys in Y Gath evoke The Good, The Bad and The Queen in its theatrical composition, replete with talking vocals high in the mix like a Jane Birkin narration on a Serge Gains-

2Unknown Beyond

Unknown Beyond sees Tan Cologne push their haunting brand of Americana skyward, crafting a ghostly dreampop record that looks to the heavens for meaning. The album was written in the wake of personal loss and is filled with otherworldly imagery. These songs are dark, yet reflective, charged with longing and wonder. The New Mexico duo of Lauren Green and Marissa Macias calls their work “sonic and tactile modalities inspired by both earthly and otherworldly landscapes.” The result is a record that is shrouded in gentle, slow-moving tones that drift like the hazy recollection of a recurring dream. Opener Cool Star sees the pair's incantatory vocals trace a vaporous trail over slowcore rhythms, whilst the hypnotic thrum of You Are the Dreamer – named after the decal on a deceased friend’s car, which was later sold and used in an arson attack – becomes an elegy not just

3Aseurai

PHOEBE RINGS

The Auckland four-piece named after Saturn’s outermost ring are releasing an album, having made their mark with a self-titled EP last year. "Aseurai" means "around you in the atmosphere, hard to reach, fading away" in the native tongue of pianist / synthesist and songwriter Crystal Choi. It is also the name of the Korean-language opening track, and conveyed through a laid-back celestial soundscape. Paired with the endearing purity of Choi’s vocal, the song appears almost as if it were a ceremonial blessing: May the stars in the faraway sky / Brush your fingertips and let you breathe / May the warmth of that long-ago day / Written in shimmering starlight / Raise you up again. The record’s an easy sell: warm and light, using Choi’s jazz-school training as a springboard and replete with luxe production, a lyrical mix of halcyon nostalgia and fantasy. It sounds hopeful, antidotal, at ease in

bourg classic. It is infused with story and lore and each song is uncannily intertwined with her history and tales of the many places she has lived, from being in Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance in Las Vegas, to living in East London and Cardiff and being a member of The Pipettes. The jaunty drum break and synth stabs of 73 evoke summers in East London, and the heavy and banging The Devil is almost a Michael Jackson nodding bop with a killer bassline. The production overall is lucid and breezy, and always turns to something more surprising and dark with a chord change when you least expect it. This is an album that is true to the twists and turns of Saunders’ own personal adventures. Wistful and delicate at times, Utopia is at its most vivid and storied when the charismatic production takes the lead, providing Gwenno with a strong canvas upon which she is free to wax lyrical. Words

Heavenly Recordings heavenlyrecordings.com

for a dearly departed loved one, but for so much else that feels lost and irreplaceable. The album draws unavoidable comparisons to the hazy atmospherics of Beach House or the dark, yet tranquil, textures of Grouper, without quite reaching the same emotional catharsis. There’s even a touch of Mazzy Star on Cloud of Mirrors, albeit filtered through the dying batteries of a worn-out Walkman. Elsewhere, Infinity unfolds like a bloom of smoke billowing from a candle, whilst Angels – about the devastating LA fires – moves with the solemn stride of a funeral cortege. Like most dream-pop records Unknown Beyond is alluring and radiant, yet these tracks feel like they’re slipping from your grasp. This isn’t to say the album lacks shape, instead the group conjures an immersive environment, one that invites you to lie down, look towards the stars and sink into your current emotional state.

Words Patrick Gamble

Labrador Records labrador.se

its overarching dream-pop pocket. Spacey and poetic with a Latin-inspired base, Not A Necessity is the sonic equivalent of sequinned sunlight glancing off an azure swimming pool. The pink and orange hues of Mandarin Tree impart a feeling of promise in an uncertain moment. Get Up, with fresh vocals delivered by bassist Benjamin Locke, tethers Aseurai’s airy reverie with a deep funkiness and imperative disco language that make the album feel a bit like a day / night dialogue. It saunters along inoffensively from here, conjuring images in turn urban and galactic, until the mood stills with bittersweet penultimate track Blue Butterfly and self-soothing lullaby Good Night Aseurai moves between serene musings and danceable bops but manages to keep a pleasingly cohesive identity. This is one to stick on in the morning when the news bulletins are getting too heavy.

Words Amanda Nicholls

Carpark Records carparkrecords.com

1Queer Lens

A HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The transformative role of queer artists in the field of photography is brought to the fore in a new, landmark publication. Queer Lens features more than 200 images representing the work of 157 creatives, tracing how the camera has been used by members of LQBTQIA+ communities to publicly affirm their culture and identity. Running alongside the exhibition of the same name at Getty Museum, Los Angeles, this momentous book is a genuine and thoughtful endeavour to bring vast swathes of queer history to new audiences. At the same time, it acknowledges that this is, essentially, an impossible task. Co-authors Paul Martineau and Ryan Linkof write in the introduction: “The excitement and challenge of this project stem from the fact that queer and photography are vastly, almost endlessly, multifaceted expansive terms.” The richness of LGBTQIA+ life and the diversity

2Carrie Mae Weems

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

The Heart of the Matter is an essential insight into the mind and vision of Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953), one of the most influential voices in contemporary photography. The comprehensive volume begins with Family Pictures and Stories (1978-1984) – an intimate, documentarystyle portrait of Weems’ loved ones. It is a privilege to read about the influence of these people and places, and it serves as an introduction to Kitchen Table Series (1990). Twenty images relay a fictional domestic melodrama, in which Weems’ character – sometimes joined by others, sometimes alone – is positioned under a bright light. Here, the kitchen table is a stage upon which the complexity of a woman's life plays out, including periods of compassion, desire, joy and sorrow. Weems’ self-documentary approach is at its most potent in Museums (2006-ongoing). The artist, dressed entirely in

3Green Building Envelopes

of queer experience is palpable. The pages brim with authenticity. Queer Lens zooms out, surveying the influence of LGBTQIA+ people on photography since its inception in 1839. Readers are taken from the laws and censorship of sexuality at the turn of the 20th century, through the drag performers of 1920s New York, 1969 Stonewall riots, AIDS crisis of the 1980s, to the presentday, honing in on issues like the struggle for trans rights. The images featured include portraits of gay cultural icons, such as Irving Penn’s picture of writer Truman Capote; historic moments like Arthur Tress’ Gay Activists at First Gay Pride Parade; and Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s snapshots of Black, queer desire. The volume is a tour de force, addressing a wealth of topics but managing to give each the reverence they deserve. It commits to paper a profound collective story of creativity, joy and resistance.

Words Emma Jacob

Getty Publications getty.edu

black and turned away from the camera, stands outside cultural institutions. It’s a powerful assertion of presence in buildings that often fail to equitably represent women and artists of colour. Photography’s role in upholding systems of oppression is addressed throughout, as is Weems’ continued dedication to revealing social injustice. The book closes with The Shape of Things (2021), a timely video about turbulent American politics and racialised violence, and Leave Now! (2022), dedicated to Weems’ grandfather, who disappeared after surviving an attack by a white mob. Whether in front of or behind the camera, Weems is at the heart of everything she does. But these artworks are not “about her”: they are for every woman, every Black individual, anyone who knows what it is like to face inequality or have their voice silenced. That is what makes The Heart of the Matter so important.

THE LATEST ECO-FRIENDLY ARCHITECTURE

“In a world suffering the impacts of climate change to an ever-greater extent, awareness of the need to rethink architecture is also growing.” The opening line of Sibylle Kramer’s Green Building Envelopes serves as an undercurrent to the rest of the book. It is a study of ecoconscious planning, presenting a series of façades that do more than clothe a structure – they breathe, grow and actively refresh the urban fabric. Kramer invites readers to reconsider the built environment, not as a rigid frame but as a site of regeneration. This vision unfolds through 40 examples that see “living architecture” made tangible. Across continents and climates, Kramer presents an artfully composed collection of case studies. From the luscious terraces of Bosco Verticale in Milan to the dramatic gardens of One Central Park in Sydney, as well as the organic forms of Maggie’s Yorkshire in Leeds, each docu-

mented site exemplifies a seamless integration of landscape and structure. The M6B2 Tower of Biodiversity in Paris, with its seed-spreading strategy, is emblematic of a shift toward ecological proactivity in urban construction. Alongside captivating imagery, the publication offers in-depth writing that navigates the changing relationship between buildings and nature. Kramer’s detailed analysis presents a thoughtful perspective on the subject, showing how dynamics between engineering and ecology are continuously evolving, as attitudes shift. It also touches on the importance of plants, which “provide tranquillity and regeneration in times when stress and a hectic pace often dominate everyday life.” Green Building Envelopes is not only a record of the here-and-now, but a celebration of what's next. It looks towards a future where architecture, and people, are in sync with their environments.

Words Eleanor Sutherland Aperture aperture.org

Words Fruzsina Vida Braun braun-publishing.ch

Bruno Mitre

Bruno Mitre’s work is based upon the theories proposed by deconstructivist architecture, and is influenced by the ideas of French philosopher Jacques Derrida as well as architects Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid. Mitre takes impressions of cities and transforms them into drawings and paintings.

mitre.bruno.atelier

brunomitre.com

Clare Thatcher is an international awardwinning artist based in Bristol, UK. Painting and drawing is at the heart of her practice; her bold works feature pure colour which she makes from pigment. Thatcher’s artwork is held in collections throughout Europe and the USA.

clare_artist

clarethatcher.com

The visual language of Chris Silver’s practice merges aesthetic elements from abstract expressionism, post-impressionism and pop art into a unique hybrid form. He often focuses on the human face – not as portraiture, rather as an emotional terrain to be disrupted, reassembled and translated through colour. Silver’s interests that inform his work are the human condition, beauty and psychology.

chrissilverart.com

INKTERAKTIV

INKTERAKTIV aka Caro Clarke is a London-based sculptor. She mixes paper and light to create sculptural pieces with a surreal, optical effect. The resulting works – inspired by urban and natural worlds – emphasise the delicacy of paper versus its architectural structure within a minimalist setting.

Jane Gottlieb

Jane Gottlieb takes photographs that she paints, combines and enhances with Adobe Photoshop to express her imagination and create her unique colourful vision of the world. The work shown here is part of a series inspired by Frank Gehry’s architectural masterpieces.

Izzy Gee specialises in abstract painting, in which she explores themes of nostalgia and perspective – challenging traditional representations of portraiture and landscape. She aims to break formal constraints through techniques and choice of colour, and offer the viewer a sense of escapism.

Karin Hay White

izzygeeart

izzygee.com

janegottlieb.com

Drawing nr 24 shows intuitive lines and layered texture – this colour-rich piece explores the complexity of human experience, with its harmonious and chaotic elements. The work of UK-based Norwegian artist Karin Hay White invites stillness within movement and beauty.

karin.haywhite

Kirsi Neuvonen

Kirsi Neuvonen is an award-winning Finnish fine artist. She has worked in Jyväskylä since 1984 –first with intaglio and then a gradual progression to creating monotypes since 2016. Her work reflects a longing for beauty and the consideration of the aesthetics and nature that surround all of us.

Maria Emilov

kirsineuvonen

kirsineuvonen.fi

Sofia-born artist Maria Emilov believes that her life journey, and academic and self-directed studies drive her practice. She is particularly interested in using art to examine themes of home, communication with others, as well as understanding our relationship with nature.

Mae Jeon

New York-based, Korean-born artist Mae Jeon uses her extensive background in graphic design to explore intricacies of spiritual concepts, and materialises them in digital alterations. She uses a central floral motif and creates digital images that place flowers in a simulated environment.

werner

maejeonart

maejeon.com

Nimariah8

mariaemilov.net

Ghent-born Max Werner studied at the Byam Saw School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, London. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the world and his work is featured in numerous private collections and museums. Werner lives and works in the USA.

maxwernerart.com

vinci weng

Vinci Weng is a distinguished artist and professor known for an innovative approach to visual storytelling. His works rethink the concept of a cinematographic picture – seamlessly blending east-west pictorial traditions whilst navigating the boundaries between realism and surrealism.

Scarlett Lingwood

vinciweng.com

The island of Koh Mak, Thailand forms the inspiration for Scarlett Lingwood’s new body of work, created using paint, pencil and pen on paper. Lush green and pink foliage overlooking the surrounding water is embodied within the colourful images.

Yoonyoung Kim

s.l.nyc

Yoonyoung Kim explores the evolving relationship between humans and algorithms through AI-generated and hand-finished artworks. Kim examines perception, agency and the porous boundaries between human decision-making and algorithmic influence.

yy.playground

yoonyoung.com

nuabon.net
nua.bon
Nu’a Bon’s Ho‘okupu: Offerings is a decadeslong odyssey of site-specific painting, rooted in environmental change and indigenous histories. The latest chapter Ha‘alulu: Tremors traces fault lines of the west coast of the USA – a potent metaphor for cultural displacement and resilience.

“Ruth Asawa is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. She is best-known for her suspended looped wire sculptures that take on a stunning array of forms, layers and shapes. Throughout her career, an interest in nature, continuous experimentation and a spirit of generosity drove her work, which extended across many mediums and into her commitment to public arts education in San Francisco. This show is the first posthumous retrospec

tive and features the entire spectrum of the artist’s awe-inspiring practice. In addition to Asawa’s lasting commitment to advocacy that feels so relevant today, the tour of the exhibition, which includes stops in New York and Europe, will coincide with what would have been the artist’s 100th birthday on 24 January 2026.” Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, SFMOMA. Until 2 September 2025.

Marin Sarvé-Tarr
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Artist Ruth Asawa making wire sculptures, California, United States, November 1954. Image: Nat Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock.
Artwork: © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner.

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