Bio

Known for immersive spectacles spanning exhibitions, music shows, and fashion events, the award-winning Flora&faunavisions design studio pioneers new technologies at the intersection of light, media, and digital frameworks. 

Recent highlights include the immersive “Insideout" exhibit, now part of the permanent collection at the WNDR Museum across the United States. In December 2023, the world witnessed the thrilling premiere of the first-ever digital opera of "The Ring Cycle", a 15 hour kinetic, digital extravaganza at Opera Australia, showcasing the studio’s innovative stage design and leaving the press astonished.  Another recent venture, "Revolution Earth", at the Discovery Museum NL, offers a family-friendly interactive experience on the climate crisis.  Additionally, their collaborations with electronic music luminaries such as Solomun, Paul Kalkbrenner and WhoMadeWho have ignited audiences worldwide through innovative stage, lighting and festival design.  

Synopsis

Designed, created and owned by the world-renowned, visionary design studio flora&faunavisions, Utopian Garden blossoms as an immersive, fully interactive experience where creativity and science come together in the natural world. This extraordinary exhibit invites into a vivid immersion of nature, offering a joyful and colorful journey through a magnificently imagined immersive digital landscape. Utopian Garden had its world premiere in Seattle/Tacoma on 19 May, hosted by Tacoma Arts Live. Utopian Garden was shown at the Tacoma Armory (to October 2023) and is now set to travel the world.  

Utopian Garden (full experience) is a 45-minute, story-based, fully-immersive interactive experience driven by co-creation. Set at the intersection of art, science and nature, participants co-create an interactive adventure within an enormous digital landscape. Following a guided, 3-part storyline, visitors actively shape their journey through the Utopian Garden, interacting with dynamic projections that bring the experience to life. A fully original, dynamic sound design paired with breathtaking digital art ensures visitors are fully immersed in the incredible Utopian Garden adventure.  

Told over three chapters, Utopian Garden explores how SCIENCE, NATURE, and ART can come together to create an exquisitely imagined digital paradise. The SCIENCE chapter emphasizes curiosity and exploration and highlights how examining repeating patterns in nature can lead to new discoveries. Visitors can create and play with gamified ‘supershape’ elements based on mathematical and scientific formula. NATURE explores the essential resources our planet offers while delving deeper into the gamified elements of the show. Four types of ‘seeds’ yield plants with different characteristics, each of which is key to our survival: medicine, food, material, and energy. Visitors are able to feed and care for their plants, which are in turn used to fuel the development of the Utopian Garden. Finally, the ART chapter invites guests to explore how the subversion of perspective impacts our understanding of the world around us. Generated using AI-technology, the ART chapter is all about transformation: participants are able to manipulate and reconstruct shapes and plants as they build their Utopian Garden. Ultimately, the co-created Utopian Garden is unveiled as the final stage of the show.  

Utopian Garden is the latest and greatest addition to the growing field of ‘edutainment,’ which combines entertainment with learning opportunities. Built on the idea that we learn better when we have fun, this project combines immersive entertainment with educational elements, creating an inspirational experience that sparks joy and creativity. This project is the culmination of over 25 years of experience in the interactive commercial space and borne from a deep-seated desire to offer a beautiful, thought-provoking and inspiring experience for everyone. 

Visitors are also invited to explore a workshop space with activities for all ages, with projects from making leaf rubbings to creating 'seed-bombs' and button-pins out of ecological materials. This hands-on element allows visitors to take their learnings and inspiration from the show and transform them into a physical product. Visitors are able to leave their projects behind and take creations from previous participants, re-enforcing the themes of sustainability, community, and connection explored in the show itself. Utopian Garden is an educational experience that teaches us take small steps to build a better, more sustainable world; the workshop space provides visitors with an opportunity to put that new knowledge into practice. 

“Utopian Garden invites visitors to embrace the hopeful, playful aspects of our connection with nature,” says Leigh Sachwitz, founder and CEO of flora&faunavisions. “We want to highlight imagination and inspiration, giving participants the opportunity to reconnect with the natural world and each other by exploring the concept of utopia”. 

All ages are invited to explore and play in this incredible new immersive experience.