Essence, Freya Burnett 2026
Essence
Moving Image Installation
Arts House Trust
22 January — 22 March 2026
Freya Burnett
In essence, the essence becomes of the essence.
Extending a warm invitation into a space of potency, Essence veers away from conventional depictions of serenity, instead seeking refuge within a visually opulent realm. It articulates a relationship between care, fantasy, and charm, positioning the feminine experience as a space that is both precious and attentively nurtured.
Essence serves as a meditation on the value and fragility of interior states, ultimately calling for a conscious and passionate embrace of enchantment. Essence is a continuation of Freya Burnett’s exploration of feminine interiority, enchantment and the brain as a site of tenderness. The work places viewers within an immersive projection-mapped environment that operates as a loosely defined interior. The projected surfaces build a reflective atmosphere, nesting textures together; Jewel tones, carbonated liquids, speckled light and mirror-like imagery that build on Burnett’s existing visual language. Fergus Waveforms (Tāmaki Makaurau) constructed the soundscape for Essence using Ableton Live Software. Contrasting sonic characters, Waveforms used a different type of digital synthesis including granular, wavetable and subtractive synths to generate each individual layer of sound.
Presented in association with Plomacy