presents:
Shifting Landscapes
An Immersive Exhibition
Bargehouse
Oxo Tower Wharf, London
Free Admission
1.–
10.
December
2023
11am
7pm Daily
1.– 10. December 2023
11am 7pm Daily
Bargehouse
Oxo Tower Wharf, London
We have arrived at a threshold: a liminal space where the world we have known is coming undone and new configurations are still taking shape. When the glaciers perish, when lakes dry up and deserts flood, when our forests are on fire—these are transformations mythic in scale. As natural rhythms detach from their familiar contours, it becomes clear that our present ways of being in relation with the living world cannot hold. Within our shared grief at this unfolding destruction, a space is opening, beckoning us to remember that we are not—and have never been—separate from the enfolding Earth.
Shifting Landscapes presents works by nine artists that open our imaginations to our entanglement with the biosphere, from the smallest stirrings of life within our bodies to the massive imprints we have left on the Earth’s face. Drawing us out of our human exceptionalism towards kinship with the living world, these works remind us of the deep interconnectedness of all life.
Bearing witness to the Earth’s rapid transformations, this exhibition invites you to see, touch, hear, and breathe—to feel into and participate in the spaces of connection and kinship that are held here. Immersed in the music of birdsong, the migration of microbes, the sounds of silence, the breath of a rainforest, might we remember ourselves as an extension of the changing Earth? What seeds of reciprocity, of abundant mutual care, might take root?
Featuring the work of:
Adam Loften
is a filmmaker who produces documentaries, virtual reality experiences, and multimedia stories that highlight pressing social and environmental issues. His work has been featured on PBS, National Geographic, Emergence Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and The New York Times.
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
is an Emmy- and Peabody-nominated filmmaker, Naqshbandi Sufi teacher, and founder and executive editor of Emergence Magazine. His award-winning films have been featured on PBS, National Geographic, and The New York Times OpDocs, and exhibited at the Smithsonian.
Gheorghe Popa
is a photographer from Transylvania, Romania, whose work has been published in National Geographic, Natuurfotografie Magazine, and On Landscape. He has won several international awards, including the National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year (Mention) and the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Kalyanee Mam
is an award-winning Cambodian-born filmmaker. Her debut documentary feature, A River Changes Course, won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and the Golden Gate Award for Best Feature Documentary.
Katie Holten
is a visual artist based in New York City and Ardee, Ireland. In 2003, she represented Ireland at the 50th Venice Biennale. In 2015, she created a Tree Alphabet and used it to make the book About Trees. Her latest book is The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape.
Kiliii Yüyan
is a Nanai/Hèzhé (East Asian Indigenous) and Chinese American photographer based on traditional Duwamish lands in the Northwestern US, whose work illuminates human relationships to the natural world. Kiliii is an award-winning contributor to National Geographic, TIME, and other major publications.
Marshmallow Laser Feast
is one of the world’s leading immersive art collectives. Their work illuminates the hidden natural forces that surround us, inviting participants to navigate with a sensory perception beyond their daily experience. Their recent installations include Sanctuary of the Unseen Forest, Evolver, and In the Eyes of the Animal.
Studio Airport
is Bram Broerse and Maurits Wouters. Together with a small team of creatives, they run a design practice based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The studio has been recognized with international awards for projects such as Hart Island Project (New York), Amsterdam Art Council, and Greenpeace International.
Zied Ben Romdhane
is a documentary photographer and photojournalist from Tunisia whose work has been exhibited internationally and featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Le Monde, and more. In 2019 he joined Magnum Photos and became an associate member in 2023. His first book is West of Life.
During both weekends of the exhibition, we will be hosting a series of special events, including conversations with the exhibition’s artists and Emergence contributors, and special film screenings. Tickets are not required for entry, but due to high demand, we recommend reserving one to guarantee your admission.
Saturday, Dec 2nd
Meet the Artists: A conversation with Marshmallow Laser Feast’s director Ersin Han Ersin, hosted by Emergence Magazine’s executive editor Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Marshmallow Laser Feast’s director Ersin Han Ersin discusses the process behind the experiential art collective’s “Breathing with the Forest” and how their immersive projects strive to illuminate the hidden natural forces that surround us.
Reserve your free ticketThe Evolving Medium of a Magazine: A panel discussion, hosted by Stack Magazines’ Steven Watson
A conversation with Studio Airport’s Bram Broerse and Maurits Wouters, Emergence Magazine’s executive editor Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, and Stack Magazines’ director Steven Watson on the evolving relationship between story and design in print, digital, and physical spaces.
Reserve your free ticketFilm Screening: The Nightingale’s Song, directed by Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Nightingales, who have coexisted with humans for millennia and been a consistent wellspring of intrigue and creative inspiration, are losing breeding habitat in England and may disappear from the country within our lifetimes. In this film, folk singer Sam Lee draws on an ancient lineage of oral storytelling as he joins this elusive bird in mutual song.
Reserve your free ticketSunday, Dec 3rd
Puffling: A film screening followed by Q&A with director Jessica Bishopp
On a remote Icelandic island, pufflings leaving their nests for the first time often get lost in the town, mistaking the harbour lights for the moon. In this new Emergence Magazine, If/Then Shorts and New Yorker Documentary short film, we follow two teenagers, Birta and Selma, for a night as they rescue young puffins while also grappling with their own uncertain futures. In the age of climate crisis, Puffling explores the delicate interplay between wildlife and human life. This film was produced as part of a special Shifting Landscapes film program with If/Then Shorts and Emergence Magazine.
Reserve your free ticketWhen the Earth Started to Sing: A presentation with David G. Haskell
Biologist and author David G. Haskell journeys through deep time to trace the evolution of sound on Earth and the kinship that is present when we listen to the songs that thrum in the air around us.
Reserve your free ticketThe Nightingale’s Song: A film screening followed by Q&A with directors Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, and film subject folk singer Sam Lee
Nightingales, who have coexisted with humans for millennia and been a consistent wellspring of intrigue and creative inspiration, are losing breeding habitat in England and may disappear from the country within our lifetimes. In this film, folk singer Sam Lee draws on an ancient lineage of oral storytelling as he joins this elusive bird in mutual song.
Reserve your free ticketSaturday, Dec 9th
Meet the Artists: A conversation with filmmaker, Kalyanee Mam, hosted by Emergence executive editor Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
To create the film Lost World, Cambodian-American filmmaker Kalyanee Mam spent several years embedded with the community of Koh Sralau, whose livelihoods depend on mangrove forests that are being mined for sand to expand Singapore’s landmass. Join us for a conversation to learn more about Kalyanee’s filmmaking process and the intimate, reciprocal relationships that have allowed her to tell this story from a place of humility and mutual connection.
Reserve your free ticketEarth Cries: Selected readings and conversation with Ben Okri
Nigerian-British poet and Booker Prize–winning novelist Ben Okri will read his poem “Earth Cries” and an excerpt from his book Tiger Work, which explore the dissolution of the world we have known and the possibilities emerging in its wake.
Reserve your free ticketSeeds of Reciprocity: A panel discussion with Kalyanee Mam, Lucy Jones, and Joycelyn Longdon, moderated by David G. Haskell
An afternoon of conversation with filmmaker Kalyanee Mam, Climate in Colour founder Joycelyn Longdon, and writer Lucy Jones, chaired by biologist and author David G. Haskell, that will consider how we might rekindle awe and reciprocity by remembering ourselves as extensions of the changing Earth.
Reserve your free ticketSunday, Dec 10th
Mycelial Landscapes: A conversation with Merlin Sheldrake and Marshmallow Laser Feast creative director Barney Steel
Mycologist and writer Merlin Sheldrake joins Marshmallow Laser Feast creative director Barney Steel and Emergence Magazine founder Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee in conversation about the mycelial webs that infiltrate and sustain the landscapes we inhabit. Tracing these underground networks, we’ll explore how fungi challenge our traditional conceptions of individuality, intelligence, and life itself.
Reserve your free ticketAnimals in the Room: A presentation with Melanie Challenger
Writer and ethicist Melanie Challenger speaks to the framework of kinship and compassion that underpins Animals in the Room—a project exploring how animals can participate and be represented in the environmental and political decisions that affect them.
Reserve your free ticketThe Nightingale’s Song: A film screening followed by Q&A with directors Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, and film subject folk singer Sam Lee
Nightingales, who have coexisted with humans for millennia and been a consistent wellspring of intrigue and creative inspiration, are losing breeding habitat in England and may disappear from the country within our lifetimes. In this film, folk singer Sam Lee draws on an ancient lineage of oral storytelling as he joins this elusive bird in mutual song.
Reserve your free ticketWeekdays
Film Screening: The Nightingale’s Song, directed by Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Nightingales, who have coexisted with humans for millennia and been a consistent wellspring of intrigue and creative inspiration, are losing breeding habitat in England and may disappear from the country within our lifetimes. In this film, folk singer Sam Lee draws on an ancient lineage of oral storytelling as he joins this elusive bird in mutual song.
Oxo Tower Wharf, Barge House St,
London SE1 9PH, UK
Bargehouse is owned and managed by Coin Street Community Builders, a social enterprise in London’s South Bank that has transformed a largely derelict 13-acre site into a thriving mixed-use neighborhood by creating new co-operative homes; shops, galleries, restaurants, cafes; and by providing childcare, family support, learning, and enterprise support programmes.