In May 1982, Agnes Denes planted a wheat field in the shadow of Wall Street. Stretching across two acres of landfill in lower Manhattan, Wheatfield – A Confrontation appeared where it seemingly had no right to exist. Surrounded by the towers of global finance, facing the Statue of Liberty and standing only blocks from the World Trade Center, the field introduced an ancient agricultural cycle into the symbolic centre of late twentieth-century capitalism. Over four months, wheat was sown, tended and harvested on land valued in the billions of dollars, exposing the contradictions between economic value and human necessity. The work immediately became one of the defining public artworks of the 20th century.

40 years later, the questions that animated Wheatfield have only become more urgent. Throughout a career spanning more than five decades, Denes has repeatedly challenged humanity to think beyond the limits of the present. Long before climate change entered mainstream political discourse, she was exploring the relationships between ecology, technology, economics and survival. Drawing upon science, philosophy, mathematics, linguistics and systems theory, her work has consistently asked how humanity might navigate an increasingly fragile future. Rather than simply documenting crisis, Denes has sought to construct new frameworks for understanding our place within the larger structures that govern life on Earth.

Presented on the fortieth anniversary of Wheatfield – A Confrontation, Another Confrontation unfolds across three interconnected chapters spanning more than a millennium. Moving between past, present and future, the commission transforms CIRCA’s global network of screens into a platform for reflection on humanity’s relationship to time itself.

The first chapter revisits Wheatfield – A Confrontation (1982), a work that remains startling in its clarity and relevance. Conceived as an act of protest and poetic intervention, the project addressed world hunger, resource distribution, environmental degradation, land use and economic inequality. What appeared to be a simple field of wheat was in fact a profound challenge to prevailing systems of value.

The second chapter turns to Tree Mountain – A Living Time Capsule (1992–96), one of the most ambitious ecological artworks ever realised. Conceived by Denes in 1982 and completed in Finland fourteen years later, the work consists of 11,000 trees planted by 11,000 people from around the world according to a complex mathematical pattern. Protected for four centuries, the mountain cannot be altered, developed or disturbed until the year 2396. It exists simultaneously as sculpture, ecological restoration project and gift to future generations.

The final chapter extends Denes’s thinking beyond both memory and monument. Through a new global questionnaire, audiences are invited to reflect upon the state of humanity in 2022 and contribute their responses to a time capsule that will remain sealed until the year 3022. In doing so, Denes asks participants to imagine themselves not only as inhabitants of the present but as ancestors. What traces of our values, fears, ambitions and failures should survive a thousand years into the future? What responsibility do we bear towards those who will inherit the consequences of our actions?

Underlying all three chapters is a fundamental proposition that has guided Denes’s practice from the beginning: that humanity’s greatest challenge is not technological but ethical. The question is not whether we possess the knowledge to transform the world, but whether we possess the wisdom to do so responsibly.

Alongside the commission, CIRCA extends Wheatfield into the digital realm through an augmented reality intervention developed with Meta Open Arts and Darabase. Appearing on mobile devices around the world, a virtual wheat field grows across contemporary urban space, allowing participants to carry Denes’s original gesture into new territories and new generations.

As wars continue to threaten global food security, climate systems approach critical thresholds and economic inequality widens across the world, Another Confrontation demonstrates the extraordinary prescience of Denes’s vision. Yet the commission is ultimately not an expression of pessimism. For all its warnings, Denes’s work remains rooted in possibility. Wheat grows. Trees are planted. Seeds are exchanged. Messages are sent forward through time.

Forty years after she planted a field of wheat in Manhattan, Agnes Denes continues to remind us that every future begins with an act of imagination.

Agnes Denes is one of the most influential and visionary artists of the past century, widely recognised as a pioneer of environmental art, conceptual art and ecological thinking. For more than six decades, she has created works that unite art, science, philosophy, mathematics and ecology, challenging audiences to consider humanity’s relationship with the natural world and the long-term consequences of our actions.

Born in Budapest in 1931, raised in Sweden and later educated in the United States, Denes emerged in the 1960s as one of the first artists to address environmental and planetary concerns through contemporary art. Long before climate change, sustainability and ecological collapse entered mainstream discourse, her work explored questions of resource management, population growth, environmental degradation and humanity’s responsibility to future generations. Moving fluidly between drawing, sculpture, installation, land art, writing and public interventions, she developed a uniquely interdisciplinary practice that continues to shape contemporary discussions around art and ecology today.

In 2022, Denes collaborated with CIRCA on Another Confrontation, a major public commission marking the fortieth anniversary of her landmark work Wheatfield – A Confrontation (1982). Presented across CIRCA’s international network of screens in London, Berlin, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Milan, New York and Seoul, the project revisited her prophetic concerns through a trilogy of moving-image works spanning past, present and future. Accompanied by an augmented reality wheat field in Piccadilly Circus and a global questionnaire designed to be opened in the year 3022, the commission introduced Denes’s extraordinary vision to a new generation while reaffirming the urgency of her message. Through the recurring call to “Plant Hope – Harvest Peace”, the project demonstrated the artist’s enduring belief that imagination, responsibility and collective action remain essential tools for shaping a more sustainable future.

Denes’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and numerous major institutions worldwide. Her projects, from Wheatfield – A Confrontation in lower Manhattan to Tree Mountain – A Living Time Capsule in Finland, are now regarded as defining works in the history of environmental art. Through a practice that continues to inspire artists, scientists and activists alike, Agnes Denes has shown that art can do more than reflect the world. It can help imagine, question and transform it.