Sanctuary of the Unseen Forest

Created by Marshmallow Laser Feast in collaboration with Andres Roberts and James Bulley

4K, 16:9 / 9:16, 1 channel video, 10.1 channel audio

Spatial sound design and composition by James Bulley

Our Time on Earth at PEM, Salem, US (17 February–19 June 2024
Our Time On Earth at MCQ, Quebec, Canada (14 June 2023–4 January 2024)
Nobel Prize Museum, Stockholm, Sweden (29 September–15 January 2023)
Lux: Poetic Resolution, DDP, Seoul, South Korea (4 September–31 December 2023)
Outcrop at 180 the Strand, London, United Kingdom (7 July – 30 September 2023)
Our Time On Earth, Barbican Curve Gallery, London, United Kingdom (5 May – 29 Aug 2022)

Sanctuary of the Unseen Forest seeks to foster a sense of belonging to a more-than-human world. We are intimately connected with the trees, they can be seen as an extension of our lungs in some ways. The oxygen they exhale flows into our tree-like lungs, flowing from our heart centre outward, through fractal branching arteries to feed every cell in our body. 

As we peer through the layers of the tree, we uncover the vibrancy of the life that is flowing through and beyond its body. The flow of nutrients in its phloem pulse to your heartbeat and reverberate through the room. This pulsing draws you in on a journey from crown to the roots, climaxing in rivers of carbon in the soil. Here we meet the woven mycelial bridge between land and the sky: in this network of mycorrhizal fungi we see that no self is bounded – we are all porous, enmeshed and entangled. 

In this open way we may seek to live in the world, through a deep and wordless understanding of the roles that we play., The space becomes a sanctuary, a place to reflect and contemplate our place within the wider systems of nature.

Opening in The Curve, Sanctuary of the Unseen Forest is a unique immersive video installation that reminds you of the deep link between humans and nature. Peer through the layers of a digitally-created projection of an enormous Ceiba Pentandra tree from the Colombian rainforest to discover the awesome connection of its natural living systems and their relationship to your existence. 

Created by experiential art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast with Bio-Leadership Project founder Andres Roberts, it shows the networks of nutrients in the ground being absorbed by the roots and the incredible process of photosynthesis that produces the oxygen we all breathe, demonstrating the tree's role as a living bridge between the soil and the sky. This renewed appreciation that we're one species among millions is fundamental to solving the climate emergency.

From the Barbican Centre website

With thanks to: Simon Hendry, Oriana Neidecker.