Experience Of the Oak, a one-of-a-kind. outdoor immersive art installation at Kew Gardens.
This summer, visitors to Kew Gardens can experience Of the Oak, a one-of-a-kind immersive art installation that celebrates the oak tree as a vital hub of biodiversity. The ground-breaking artwork is the creation of world-renowned experiential artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast, who have had global success with their previous work exhibiting at the likes of the Saatchi Gallery, The Barbican, Cannes Film Festival and the ACMI.
The newly commissioned artwork located within Kew’s landscape is a massive is a 6-metre-high outdoor installation. It focuses on the inner workings of the Lucombe oak, one of Kew's oldest trees and among one of the oldest Lucombe oaks in existence, creating a ‘digital double’ of the oak by using extensive real-world data captured in collaboration with Kew’s scientists and horticulturists.
The 12-minute interactive video installation guides visitors through the oak's transformation across four seasons, revealing its hidden vibrancy and intricate web of life. Visitors can actively influence the tree's motion on screen as they move through the garden, exploring beneath the oak's bark and soil to uncover the usually invisible processes that sustain the tree, including the interplay of oxygen, carbon dioxide and mycelial connections, as well as highlighting the interconnected web of over 2,300 species which rely on the tree for sustenance and survival.
Of the Oak's online field guide serves as a gateway to the vast web of relationships sustained by the oak trees at Kew. By scanning QR codes placed throughout the gardens, visitors can explore an intricate living network—unveiling how these ancient trees support thousands of species, from nesting pied flycatchers to the delicate purple hairstreak butterfly. Enhancing this journey, open-eyed meditations—written by Daisy Lafarge, Merlin Sheldrake, Ella Saltmarshe, and Laline Paull—can be accessed in designated areas, inviting visitors to sit and contemplate among the trees. These meditations deepen the experience, bridging the scientific and the poetic, expanding the video artworks’ themes into a solitary, immersive encounter with the natural world.
Collaboration with Kew’s curators, scientists, and horticulturists see the birth of this work, as part of an ongoing effort to digitally preserve endangered ecosystems and enables visitors to find out more about the future of trees and the important work that Kew is doing to protect them.
Listings
3 May to 28 September 2025
Kew Gardens Kew, Richmond, London, TW9 3AE
Admission: Included with entry to the Gardens BOOK HERE