About this Event
An afternoon of virtual explorations and artist talks with Skawennati, Wendi Yan and Kinnari Saraiya, exploring how digital tools can enable us to reimagine cultural heritage, identity and alternative futures.
Taking place as part of the exhibition , this gathering offers an opportunity to discover the ideas and creative processes behind the artists' work, from virtual world-building and speculative histories to alternative systems of knowledge. The event is hosted by Pita Arreola, arebyte's Head of Programme and curator of the exhibition.
PROGRAMME
Skawennati, an internationally exhibiting artist who has spent this millennium imagining utopic futures, invites audiences into Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace Island, a destination she co-created within the 3D online virtual world Second Life. Through her avatar, she will navigate the island in real time, bringing its virtual environment to life as a live, performative exploration. Drawing on her dual perspectives as an urban Mohawk woman and a cyberpunk avatar, her practice spans speculative fiction machinima, costumes and quilts, gradually coalescing into an alternate universe.
Wendi Yan, an artist whose practice combines CGI, game engines and scientific research to explore how knowledge is constructed, will discuss the development of Dream of Walnut Palaces (2025). The film follows a fictional Daoist scholar travelling from Beijing to Paris in the eighteenth century, imagining how European science might have developed differently through an encounter with Daoist philosophy. Using archival material and AI-assisted 3D modelling, the work reimagines historical exchanges between China and Europe.
Kinnari Saraiya, a London-based interdisciplinary artist and dancer whose practice draws on South Asian embodied knowledge and colonial archives, will share the research and creative process behind In the Eye of a Dream (2025-present). This interactive installation brings to life a dream recorded in India in 1921 as part of a British colonial anthropological project. Through digital storytelling, sound and an embroidered controller, the work invites visitors to explore alternative understandings of memory, history and time.
We encourage visitors to explore the exhibition before the event. Allow approximately 40 minutes for your visit. The exhibition opens at 12pm, and the event begins at 3pm.
The exhibition is open to public from 18 Sep 2026 to 17 Jan 2027, Wed-Sun 12 - 6pm.
Read more about it.
Event venue & nearby stays
arebyte Digital Art Centre, 27 Camden Road, London, United Kingdom
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