Without light there is no life. Light is essential for plants to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen, in the process we know as photosynthesis. This is the foundation that has allowed Earth to evolve into the biodiverse, oxygen-rich, green planet we know today. Viewing plants as fascinating, sophisticated systems can help us understand how they adapt and live in harmonious symbiosis with others.
Photosystem II is a room-sized immersive projection that wraps around three walls to hold the viewer in its leafy embrace. The animated film progresses in complexity and scale – from a waving sea of singular sprouts to massive man-made structures spilling over with an abundance of greenery. It references the continuous and ongoing evolution of biodiversity, which all started with a single-celled organism that learned to photosynthesise. We are reminded that symbiosis is the fundamental driver of evolution. The fly-through of organic matter cycles through various states, suggesting that the human chapter on earth is a mere blip in the 3.4 billion years that organisms have been photosynthesising for.

Barnabás Bencsik

This work was created for the Signal Festival 2022.