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    In ‘Of the Oak,’ a Magnificent Tree at Kew Gardens Gets an Immersive ‘Digital Double’

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    All images courtesy of Marshmallow Laser Feast, courtesy of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, shared with permission

    In ‘Of the Oak,’ a Magnificent Tree at Kew Gardens Gets an Immersive ‘Digital Double’

    May 30, 2025

    ArtDesignNatureScience

    Kate Mothes

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    “We believe in the power of stories to tickle senses and shift perceptions,” says Marshmallow Laser Feast, an experiential artist collective merging art, extended reality (XR), and film into large-scale, immersive exhibitions.

    MLF’s latest work, Of the Oak, situates a monumental, six-meter-tall, double-sided video of the titular tree in London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The piece focuses on the garden’s Lucombe oak, portraying a “digital double” using real-world data.

    Photo by Barney Steel

    MLF collaborated with researchers from Kew to create a vibrant, scientific rendering, blending advanced technologies with artistic imagery. The team stitched together thousands of images, used LiDAR to map the tree’s form with laser pulses, CT-scanned soil samples, employed ground-penetrating radar to trace the root system, and recorded a series of 24-hour soundtracks.

    “Of the Oak is a celebration for the oak tree as a living monument of vital ecological relationships and species interdependence,” MLF says. “It is an invitation to witness the oak as a keystone in the web of life, majestic and unassuming, stretching its branches skyward and its roots deep into the soil, embodying both quiet strength and boundless generosity.”

    Visitors can access a stunning digital field guide on their phones or via desktop from anywhere, featuring a series of meditations that “tune into the invisible bond between humans and trees.” The app also includes an interactive species guide highlighting the diverse range of birds, insects, fungi, and other inhabitants that rely on oak trees for survival.

    Of the Oak continues at Kew through September 28. Marshmallow Laser Feast is also currently presenting an immersive, seven-room exhibition titled YOU:MATTER at the National Science and Media Museum as part of Bradford 2025 U.K. City of Culture. See more projects on the collective’s website.

    Photo by Sandra Ciampon

    Photo by Barney Steel

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    • 138 Shares90 Views

      in Art

      Through Fairy Lights and Butterflies, Chiharu Shiota Tethers Presence and Absence

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      “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” (2025), mixed media, dimensions variable. All images courtesy of Red Brick Art Museum

      Through Fairy Lights and Butterflies, Chiharu Shiota Tethers Presence and Absence

      May 22, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      In one of the foundational texts of Taoism, Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou recalls a dream in which he was a butterfly, soaring through the sky with no recollection of his human form. Upon waking, though, he finds himself firmly in a bipedal body, prompting an important question: is he a butterfly dreaming he’s Zhuang Zhou or a man dreaming he’s a butterfly?

      This ancient story of transformation and the thin line between states of mind informs a dazzling new installation by Chiharu Shiota (previously). “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” suspends glimmering lights and faint butterfly wings above an iron-framed twin bed topped with a white blanket and pillow. Rejecting the strict separation between body and mind, Shiota references her belief in the spirit’s ability to endure long after one’s final breath. “While each time we slip into sleep, it is a rehearsal for death—a journey beyond the body,” she says.

      “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” (2025), mixed media, dimensions variable

      Exemplary of the artist’s interest in memory and knowledge, “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” is just one of the immersive works in the monumental exhibition Silent Emptiness at Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing.

      On view through August 31, the show revolves around Shiota’s ongoing explorations into the “presence in absence,” this time extending such inquiries into ideas of emptiness as it relates to Eastern philosophy and enlightenment.

      Included in the exhibtion is an antique Tibetan Buddhist doorway that anchors “Gateway to Silence,” an explosive installation that entwines the elaborately carved wood structure in a dense, criss-crossing labyrinth of string. Red thread, one of the artist’s favored materials, symbolizes relationships. And in this case, it’s an invitation to introspection and finding an awareness of the present moment.

      Metaphorically interlacing art, memory, and faith, Shiota very literally visualizes the intextricable web in which we’re all bound, regardless of geography or era. Pieces like “Echoes of Time” and “Rooted Memories” incorporate materials like soil and large stones, presenting the passage of time as cyclical and the past as always shaping the present.

      Detail of “Gateway to Silence” (2025), antique porch and red wool, dimensions variable

      Born in Osaka, the artist has lived in Berlin for much of her life, and Silent Emptiness also tethers her roots to more global experiences. Shiota likened her understanding of herself to the way salt molecules appear as crystals only after water evaporates. “I was not visible as an individual in Japan,” she says. “Whereas I did not know who I was, what I wanted to do, and what was necessary in the water, I feel that I became an individual and crystal, and understood those things for the first time by coming to Germany.”

      Another example of finding presence in absence, Shiota’s migration and experience of discovery provides an important touchstone for her thinking and practice. She adds, “Absence does not signify disappearance but rather an integration into a vaster universe, re-entering the flow of time and forming new connections with all things.” (via designboom)

      “Gateway to Silence” (2025, antique porch and red wool, dimensions variable

      Detail of “Gateway to Silence” (2025, antique porch and red wool, dimensions variable

      Detail of “Metamorphosis of Consciousness” (2025), mixed media, dimensions variable

      “Rooted Memories” (2025), red rope, boat, and earth, dimensions variable

      “Rooted Memories” (2025), red rope, boat, and earth, dimensions variable

      Detail of “Rooted Memories” (2025), red rope, boat, and earth, dimensions variable

      “Multiple Realities” (2025), mixed media, dimensions variable

      “Echoes of Time” (2025), black yarn and rock, dimensions variable

      “Echoes of Time” (2025), black yarn and rock, dimensions variable

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    • 138 Shares197 Views

      in Art

      Celeste’s Immersive Textile Installations Embrace the Warm Intimacy of Home

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      “Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz” (2024), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 4.5 x 7.5 meters, installation view at Escuela Primaria Maestra Antonio Caso, Mexico City. Photo by Israel Esparza. All images courtesy of Celeste, shared with permission

      Celeste’s Immersive Textile Installations Embrace the Warm Intimacy of Home

      May 9, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      When María Fernanda Camarena and Gabriel Rosas Alemán aren’t in their Mexico City studio, you might find them pulling weeds or chopping vegetables. “We love cooking and gardening—practices rooted in care, and ones we’d love to weave into our work someday,” they say. “There’s a quiet mindfulness in both that aligns perfectly with what we aim to express.”

      This desire to care roots much of the artists’ practice, which they present together under the name Celeste. Thinking of themselves as hosts, Celeste transforms galleries and museums with large-scale textile installations. In warm shades of pinks, oranges, and reds, the translucent cotton often allows light to filter through and cast tinted shadows around the space. Each work becomes a sort of mise-en-scène as viewers are invited to lounge with friends, enjoy a meal, or perform among the textiles.

      Installation view of “Melons Covered in Willow Leaves” at the artists’ studio. Photo by Anna Pla Narbona

      The earthy color palette—originally inspired by natural dyeing materials like avocado pit and turmeric root—began after the onset of COVID-19, when the artists wanted to create “an atmosphere that felt like an embrace, a much-needed warmth after the isolation of 2020,” they say. “This concept of solace stayed with us, and today, the palette has come to symbolize safe spaces, with the womb as a recurring motif: a protected, intimate interior.”

      Projects include “Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz,” or “Against fear and darkness, the colorful and happy party,” made in collaboration with a 4th-grade class from Mexico City’s Granada neighborhood. After adding their own drawings to the cotton panels, the students used the vivid installation as the backdrop for a school festival.

      The monumental “Melons Covered in Willow Leaves” is even more immersive, as viewers were invited to wander underneath a tent of draped fabric. And in their most recent exhibition at Rebecca Camacho Presents in San Francisco, the artists have installed a trio of suspended works that bisect the gallery, with arched openings that allow visitors to pass through. Referencing Diego Rivera’s “Agua, el origen de la vida” mural, the triad explores the connections between water and the impact of Mexico City’s colonial history on its landscape.

      Later this month at The Bentway in Toronto, the pair will also present “Casting a Net, Casting a Spell,” a quilted canopy of 100 individual panels created as both a suncatcher and a necessary repreieve from the summer rays. It’s their largest project to date.

      Installation view of Hacer brotar / To sprout at Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco. Photo by Robert Divers Herrick

      With each work, Celeste hopes to “invite the spectator not only in the sense of contemplation but rather in the involvement with the ceremonial… In this setting, the sensorial and emotional realms are recognized as legitimate sources of knowledge and an experience of hospitality and acknowledgment can take place without restrictions.”

      Celeste’s Hacer brotar / To sprout is on view through June 14 in San Francisco. Explore much more of the duo’s practice and process on their website and Instagram.

      Detail of “¡Qué llueva, qué llueva!” (2025), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 66 x 109 inches

      Installation view of Hacer brotar / To sprout at Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco. Photo by Robert Divers Herrick

      “Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz” (2024), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 4.5 x 7.5 meters, installation view at Escuela Primaria Maestra Antonio Caso, Mexico City. Photo by Israel Esparza

      “Hacer olas” (2023), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 2.7 x .25 x 12 meters, installation view at The Contemporary Austin, Austin, Texas. Photo by Alex Boeschenstein

      “Mellons Covered in Willow Leaves” 2024), scale model of the project in the artists’ studio 

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    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in Art

      In a Retrofitted School Bus at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Guadalupe Maravilla Heals Through Vibrations

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      All images from the Art21 “New York Close Up” film, “Guadalupe Maravilla’s ‘Mariposa Relámpago,’” © Art21, shared with permission

      In a Retrofitted School Bus at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Guadalupe Maravilla Heals Through Vibrations

      February 26, 2025

      ArtFilm

      Grace Ebert

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      Guadalupe Maravilla’s multi-disciplinary practice is rooted in a simple premise: sound is medicine.

      The artist is known for works that merge sculpture, performance, instruments, and healing, one such project being the elaborately retrofitted school bus titled “Mariposa Relámpago.” Part of Maravilla’s Disease Throwers series, the large-scale coach is devoid of bench seats and ubiquitous yellow paint and instead features an open cab lined with chrome panels. More than 700 found objects adorn its body, from cutlery and a worn pair of sandals to large gongs. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Art

      A Monumental Immersive Installation by ENESS Prompts Joy and Togetherness

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      “Forest Dancer.” All images courtesy of ENESS, shared with permission

      A Monumental Immersive Installation by ENESS Prompts Joy and Togetherness

      February 24, 2025

      ArtDesign

      Kate Mothes

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      A nine-meter-tall passageway made of eight individual arches enticed visitors into ENESS’s latest installation (previously). Last month at Quoz Arts Fest 2025 in Dubai, Forest Dancer comprised a monumental entry and an immersive exhibition of illuminated inflatable forms inside a contemporary building.

      With mushroom-like proportions, pixellated patterns, and a slew of changing hues, ENESS’s work encompasses a central character surrounded by psychedelic trees, mountains, insects, and boulder-like bean bags.

      “As artists, we work in many contexts—inside galleries and museums, in (the) public realm and even creating small art pieces for the home,” said ENESS founder Nimrod Weis. “This approach of ‘art is everywhere’ means that we responded to the inspiring architecture by creating an artwork that is at once a conversation with the built form and an installation in its own right.”

      This year’s festival was curated around the theme of an Arabic proverb meaning “a hut holds a thousand friends,” inspiring creative responses that center bringing people of all ages together and promoting interactivity.

      A statement says, “The entire exhibition, spanning over 600 square meters, is an ode to the power and importance of creativity in the face of online obsession, geopolitical upheaval, and the rise of dark forces taking us far from the soulfulness of art, human connection, and gentle contemplation,” says a statement.

      Find more on ENESS’s website.

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