Of the Oak at Kew Gardens
Of the Oak, by the experiential art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast, makes a bold and blinking statement at the heart of Kew Gardens: a six-metre LED screen pulsing in sync with the rhythms of the 240-year-old Lucombe oak, which stands just beside it. As Kew’s first outdoor digital art commission, it’s a striking debut – a 12-minute journey through the seasons that renders the tree’s inner workings in saturated technicolour. Yet for all its scale and ambition, the piece feels strangely disconnected from its surroundings. Positioned squarely in the historic, uninterrupted sightline of the 1,200-metre-long Syon Vista, it comes across as an act of visual defiance, disrupting the very landscape it seeks to honour.
The installation itself goes beyond visual spectacle. Using LiDAR scans and high-resolution photogrammetry, it creates a richly detailed portrait of one of Kew’s oldest living residents. Viewers can interact with it through gestures, though this novelty quickly wears thin, giving way to a familiar pattern of immersive art clichés – all neon hues and cosmic, ambient music. The QR code attached to the side of the LED screen leads to a series of interactive panels detailing the oak’s biodiversity – fungi, birds, insects and “soft settlers” – with moving diagrams and accessible text. It’s informative, but lacks any poetic or conceptual element to distinguish it from the average exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
In contrast, the accompanying guided meditations inspired by oaks – created in collaboration with authors, poets, and scientists – offer a more subtle and meaningful engagement. Scattered throughout the quieter corners of the Gardens and activated via QR code, these short, reflective pieces are written by writers Daisy Lafarge, Laline Paull and Ella Saltmarshe, as well as scientist Merlin Sheldrake. Each meditation feels like a private, site-specific discovery. Paull’s Memory of the Oak stands out, framing the plant as a living archive of both ecological and human histories. Unlike the central installation, these meditations invite contemplation rather than mere interaction.
The strength of Of the Oak lies in its intention: to bridge the gap between human and nature, art and ecology. Yet its delivery, tethered to screens and smartphones, often seems to suggest the opposite. In its attempt to connect us more deeply to the natural world, it may instead highlight just how difficult it is to disconnect from the digital one.
Christina Yang
Image: Marshmallow Laser Feast
Of the Oak is at Kew Gardens from 3rd May until 28th September 2025. For further information or to book, visit the exhibition’s website here.
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