Between the Trees, Under the Cloud (2025)

Geodesic dome video sculpture featuring the films Roaming (2022) and Traces of Roaming (2022)
Exhibited in Together at the Seams, The Art Academy, March 2025, for the launch of Patrons of the Future

Between the Trees, Under the Cloud is a geodesic dome video sculpture that explores the blurred boundaries between digital hyperconnectivity, ecological presence, and the longing to live otherwise. Inside the dome, two ten-minute films sit in dialogue: ‘Roaming’ (2022), a self-recorded durational performance, and ‘Traces of Roaming’ (2025), a documentary reflection of the same period. Together, they form a narrative about disconnection, embodiment, and the impossibility of escaping the digital world.

The work was developed during a ten-day residency at Tinker’s Bubble, an off-grid forest community in Somerset. There, Ellen lived and worked alongside residents, learning from their practices of intentional, land-based living, self-sufficiency, and collective care. What began as a desire to “escape the online world” evolved into a deeper inquiry: What does it mean to be present today, when digital infrastructures shadow even the most remote environments?

The geodesic dome that houses the films, built from MDF, soil, conduit pipe, beechwood dowel and Hubs dome connectors, references Buckminster Fuller’s utopian design experiments. Here, the dome becomes both satellite and sanctuary, a place that holds tension rather than resolve, transmitting a quiet story about presence, surveillance, and the porous edges between offline and online life.