The Fondation Louis Vuitton opens its latest chapter of Open Space with an immersive digital art exhibition by Jakob Kudsk Steensen, marking the Danish artist’s first solo presentation in a Paris institution. Running from October 17th, 2025, to March 2nd, 2026, the exhibition introduces The Song Trapper, a sensorially rich installation that blends moving image, virtual performance, spatial sound, and environmental design. Built around themes of disappearing landscapes and shifting psychological states, the project deepens the artist’s long-standing interest in virtual ecologies and ecological awareness.
Ecological awareness as a guiding force
Steensen’s practice is rooted in a hybrid approach that merges advanced digital tools with extensive fieldwork in threatened or little-known environments. Over more than a decade, he has experimented with game engines, generative systems, and photogrammetry to construct intricate virtual worlds inspired by deserts, wetlands, submarine volcanoes, and glacial terrains. For him, the external erosion of ecosystems mirrors transformations in our inner emotional landscapes—a dialogue that shapes The Song Trapper.
Inside ‘The Song Trapper’: Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s Newest Journey
At the center of the exhibition is The Song Trapper (2025), presented on LED screens configured to respond to the architecture of Gallery 8. The work follows a silent character, originally drawn by Steensen in ink and watercolor, later reimagined as a fully animated 3D figure. Unable to speak, the protagonist relies on musical devices attached to its body—flutes, canisters, and resonant objects—to collect, remix, and replay sounds gathered along its path.
As the character moves through digital deserts, marshlands, and saline terrains, the landscapes shift in response to its gestures, creating a choreography between motion, sound, and terrain. A free-verse poem by the artist appears as subtitles, offering insights into the character’s uncertainty, longing, and philosophical reflections.
Curated by Claudia Buizza and Ludovic Delalande, the exhibition positions Steensen as one of today’s most compelling voices in technologically driven environmental art, expanding the conversation around virtual worlds and their potential to cultivate profound ecological awareness.
JAKOB KUDSK STEENSEN
Song Trapper, exhibition at the FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON, Paris
Special thanks to JOONAM PARTNERS
