Interactive, immersive experience originally commissioned by Waterside Arts for Prism Festival 2025. Installation inspired by solar punk, science fiction and optimistic visions of a sustainable future, this everchanging digital world is projected on 4 walls of a space to create a 360 view into a new realm with a surround sound procedural soundscape. Created using the Unity, the speculative world reacts to the collective decisions of audience members, who interact through a web browser on their phones, allowing visitors to collectively influence the virtual weather. This causes solar energy or rainwater to accumulate, which is used to power lights, sprinklers and other objects within the digital space, creating continuous change within the environment. Engaging for multiple generations, the audience interacts with the digital world and with each other, inspiring social interactions between audience members.

Encourages people to explore new worlds and imagining hopeful futures, immersing the audience into a place of optimism away from climate anxiety. It is a solar punk experience: an anti-dystopian, anti-capitalist piece that looks practically at creating a sustainable future, optimistically imagining a world where we have overcome climate change. It’s not about ignoring the problem but instead thinking about solutions and ways that we can coexist with the planet and each other, encouraging hope in this age of climate anxiety. Despite this serious tone, The Garden is a playful space, allowing people to experiment, be curious and learn through doing, whilst also being a meditative, audio-visual experience. So…. immerse yourself in and connect with this place of optimism.

Soundscape by Jamie Finlay

Links:

Waterside Arts Page

featured in I Love Manchester

The Garden also featured in Happy Rooms at Middlesborough Town Hall with Stellar Creates from July 27th 2026 to August 30th, where it was accompanied by 11 other artist designed immersive rooms and went by the name 'Together We Grow.'

Please get in contact for more information about this installation - I am always iterating upon this artwork, aiming to create a hopeful and engaging player experience.

screenshot of the webpage audience members use to interact with the virtual world

^ Images from Prism Festival 2025

^ Image from Happy Rooms 2026 of Together We Grow