“Tomorrow’s Nature” – the First Crossing Boundaries Lecture of 2022

VCUarts Qatar will be hosting the latest in its Crossing Boundaries lecture series with an online talk by Jonah King, on Monday, February 21 at 7pm Doha time.

In his lecture, titled “Tomorrow’s Nature”, King will chart the ‘connections between the ecological intimacies, entangled histories, and emerging technologies that underpin his cross-disciplinary practice’.

He will also discuss his process and upcoming collaborative project, ‘Honey Fungus’, a ‘sci-fi virtual reality film exploring the interconnectedness of human and non-humans through underground fungal networks’.

King will also conduct a workshop exclusively for Education City students on February 22, from 5PM Doha time. The workshop will take place both online and in the Atrium at VCUarts Qatar. The workshop will explore the creation and use of digital avatars in Augmented Reality and Motion Capture. Participants will engage several software platforms and discover the ways King uses avatars to approach our relationship with nature.

Those interested in the webinar can register online, while further information is available on The Gallery’s website. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Born in Dublin, Ireland, and based in New York, King is a media artist, filmmaker and educator who explores how ecological intimacies give rise to culture and identity.

He often invites groups of people to enact performances informed by scientific and historical research. The resulting films, sculptures, installations and technology projects are neither documentation nor storytelling. Instead, they combine the two, worldbuilding new perspectives on experiences shared.

King received a BFA from NCAD, Dublin in 2012, and an MFA from Columbia University New York in 2016. He attended the Skowhegan Residency in 2016. 

Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Rockford Museum of Art, Chicago; NCAD Gallery, Dublin; University Galleries, Ilinois; Clima, Milan; Weekend, Seoul; and Meyohas, New York. 

In addition to being part of the Irish State Collection and Irish Arts Council Collection, King’s work has featured in numerous group exhibitions, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Jewish Museum, New York; Hesse Flatow Gallery, New York; and Fotografiska, Stockholm. He has been awarded official selections at the Oberhausen Film Festival and London International Motion Pictures Awards.  He has been recognized with the Owen Walsh Award, Andrew Fisher Fellowship and a Rema Hort Mann Nomination.

King is a current Creative Science Member at NEW INC, the New Museum’s art technology incubator program in New York.

Continuing the theme of science and design, the Crossing Boundaries lecture on March 28 will feature Lucy McRae, a British-born Australian sci-fi artist and ‘Body Architect’. She has exhibited at MIT, Science Museum London, Centre Pompidou and the Venice Biennale.

McRae is a visiting professor at SCIArc in Los Angeles who has spoken at TED, Royal Albert Hall, Cannes Lion and Tribeca Film Festival. She is regarded as a pioneer who blurs the boundaries across art, architecture, design and technology with a healthy disregard for labels that limit interdisciplinary practice.

For over a decade, VCUarts Qatar’s Crossing Boundaries lecture series has been regularly offering the public a chance to interact with and be inspired by world-class designers who – through the application of design thinking, and their cross-disciplinary approaches – provide creative solutions to global concerns.