BROADCASTING GLOBALLY, MAY 2022 – Forty years since pioneering environmental artist Agnes Denes (b.1931) first sowed the seeds of her prophetic public artwork Wheatfield – A Confrontation (May 1982),  transforming the land that became New York’s Battery Park City into a two-acre wheat field, CIRCA presents ‘Another Confrontation’. With this new commission, Denes transforms Piccadilly Lights and other major screens around the world into platforms for change. Featuring three new video works alongside a specially created interactive AR wheat field on Instagram, Denes alerts audiences once again to the planet’s continuing humanitarian and environmental challenges.

“PLANT HOPE – HARVEST PEACE” – Agnes Denes

Denes, whose work is currently on view in The Milk of Dreams, the main exhibition at the 2022 Venice Biennale, rose to international attention in the 1960s and 1970s, creating work influenced by science, mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, ecology, and psychology to analyse, document, and ultimately aid humanity. Her theories about climate change and life in an ever-changing, technologically-driven world demonstrate a deeply prescient understanding of society today.

Another Confrontation traverses over 1000 years of humanity (1982-3022) to debut a series of videos created by the artist for CIRCA alongside a questionnaire highlighting Denes’s focus on ecology, her fear of our present environment’s decay and hope for future survival in the following three acts:

PAST: Wheatfield–A Confrontation, 1982 (1-10 May)

An act of protest, Denes planted an expansive wheat field in a landfill in lower Manhattan in 1982, two blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center and facing the Statue of Liberty, as a comment on the mismanagement of world hunger, food, waste, energy, commerce, trade, land use, and economics.

PRESENT: Tree Mountain–A Living Time Capsule (11-20 May)

The man-made mountain was conceived by Denes in 1982. Measuring 420 meters long, 270 meters wide, 38 meters high, it was planted with 11,000 trees by 11,000 people from all across the globe at the Pinzio gravel pits near Ylojarvi, Finland in 1996. A living time capsule, the land upon which Tree Mountain is planted cannot be touched for 400 years.

FUTURE: 2022 Questionnaire and Time Capsule (21-31 May)

A new global survey inviting the public to answer 11 questions set by Denes concerning humanity in the year 2022. Submitted responses will be buried in a time capsule to be opened in the year 3022, a thousand years from now. Click here to view the Questionnaire.

“Agnes Denes is a pioneer who alerted the world to humanitarian and environmental issues when very few people were paying attention.” said Josef O’Connor, Artistic Director of CIRCA. “Pushing boundaries once again, we are honored to be marking the 40th anniversary of Wheatfield–A Confrontation with Another Confrontation, combining video with augmented reality to present her timely message on a global stage and introduce her prophetic legacy to a new generation.”

CIRCA and Piccadilly Lights have commissioned an AR wheat field to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Denes’s best known public artwork Wheatfield—A Confrontation. Expanding the experience into mobile devices, a special collaboration with Meta Open Arts has enabled the development of an AR-generated wheat field by AR Outdoor Media Company, Darabase, with the advanced camera filter enabling global Instagram users to tap and grow their very own augmented wheat field.

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.