Virtual Installation The Kuutar Garden by Jakob Kudsk Steensen Opens in Oulu, Finland, in September

Deep underneath the city centre of Oulu, Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s site-specific installation The Kuutar Garden comes to life on 18 September as part of the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture programme, featuring musical collaborations with Danny L Harle and vocalist yeule.

“The Kuutar Garden evokes a new ecological reality, unrooted from our physical boundaries, into a rhythmic and ghost-like world nurtured by a moonlight illuminated botanical garden. I hope audiences feel connected to the emergence of new worlds, and the caring of overlooked plant life,” says Steensen.

The Kuutar Garden emerges from over four years of ecological fieldwork within the Botanical Garden of the University of Oulu, one of the world's northernmost botanic gardens, where Steensen bore witness to subarctic winters set against the artificial glow of greenhouse architecture.

From this encounter, Steensen has conjured a virtual replica of that architecture, carrying audiences into an otherworldly realm: a place where the sun has departed, yet artificial moons rise to illuminate the dark, casting their pale light across a garden of ghosts.

His fieldwork drew him toward the conservation of Hippuris tetraphylla, an endangered aquatic plant, and toward other botanical stories now held within the installation as quiet afterlives.

Deep beneath Oulu city centre, the installation unfolds inside Kivisydän, an underground civil defence shelter used as a car park. There, light, sound and movement lead visitors through a spectral garden of ever-shifting plant worlds.

Jakob Kudsk Steensen – evoker of virtual worlds

Jakob Kudsk Steensen (b. 1987, Denmark) explores ecological and psychological themes. Working with technologies such as game engines, generative systems and photogrammetry, he challenges perspectives on technology, nature and human interaction. His practice is often described as worldbuilding, creating immersive environments.

His commissions include Wetland at The Museum of Modern Art (2026), The Song Trapper at Fondation Louis Vuitton (2025–26), Boreal Dreams at Fondation Beyeler (2025), and Psychosphere at Cisternerne (2025). He is one of the artists at Helsinki Biennial from 6 June to 19 September 2027.

The Kuutar Garden is commissioned by Oulu2026, European Capital of Culture, and is part of the Oulu2026 cultural programme.

18 Sept–30 Nov 2026
Kivisydän, Oulu
Mon–Sat 11–19 & Sun 11–18

Press photos: Photo Library

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