Immersive Lanterns. 2026
By Betty Sargeant.
Public art.
MEDIUM: Printed acrylic, addressable leds, electronics and audio.
SIZE: 1.4m (H) x 4m (W) x 15m (D). DURATION: 2 mins.
COMMISSIONED BY: Culture Creative for Lightscape, Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens 2026
WILDERNESS WITHIN transports audiences to the centre of the world’s most crucial ecosystems. The artwork features Sargeant’s microscope imagery from significant global envirinments alongside an original soundscape created from her field recordings gathered in the same extraordinary wilderness zones. These handmade lanterns reflect ten years of research and development in the field.
This light installation is inspired by organic structures, presenting global ecosystems as one living breathing entity. WILDERNESS WITHIN draws on Sargeant’s research across significant environmental areas in the Amazon, Panama, Taiwan, India, New Zealand, Egypt, Pakistan and Australia, providing a broad international perspective that speaks to the interconnectedness of global nature.
Sargeant photographed microscopic elements from each of these ecosystems, enlarged the imagery and printed it directly onto the recycled acrylic that encases the lanterns, bringing the micro to macro scale and making concealed natural elements newly visible. The addressable LED lights inside each lantern forms an animated light show. The soundscape features environmental field recordings including the internal sounds of trees and underwater recordings from significant waterways captured using hydrophones. These unique visuals and audio elements form an evocative environment that places audiences in the centre of Earth’s most significant landscapes.
WILDERNESS WITHIN is entwined in research in molecular biology and biotechnology, fields that have made remarkable steps in revealing the sophistication and interconnectedness of flora, fungi and microbes. The artwork ruminates on the sentience of living organisms, inviting audiences to contemplate our relationship to the complex natural landscapes in which we live.
BACKGROUND
In 2019 Sargeant participated in the LabVerde: Artist Immersion in the Amazon program and the DINACON Digital Naturalism Lab program in Panama, collecting microscope and audio data from deep inside the Brazilian Amazon and the jungles of Panama. The work has also been shaped by her research and data collection at the Ganges in Varanasi (India), Wulai (Taiwan), Australia, the Sahara (Egypt) and the deserts of Pakistan.
CREDITS
Betty Sargeant: Artist, conceptual development, lantern construction and design, technical wiring, led programming, audio composition
THANKS
ENTTEC: LED supply
Billboard Media: Printing
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Betty Sargeant lives and works on the land of the Bunurong people and the Yallakut-Willam clan who are Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation (Australia). Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Betty Sargeant respectfully acknowledges the ongoing struggles and achievements of First Nations custodians. Sovereignty was never ceded.
