Volume 1
Volume 1 of Earth Rising is available on earth-rising.com/vol1, or on all major streaming platforms.
About the contributors
Emilia Álvarez
Emilia Álvarez is a multidisciplinary artist working with sculpture, drawing, performance, installation, video, sound, music, and technology. Her work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, clubs, and public spaces across Argentina, the UK, Japan, Mexico, and Switzerland. She has participated in residencies such as Gasworks (UK), Atelier Mondial (CH), both with URRA (ARG), and Kyoto Art Center (JP), and has received awards from Fondo Nacional de las Artes (ARG), Finnegans, Fundación Williams, British Council, MUTEK, among others.
Nayomi Apsara
Nayomi Apsara is a Sri Lankan writer and filmmaker whose work spans cinema, literature, and activism. She authored Throw Me Mountains. Her debut The Tea is Cold (2022) premiered at Busan International Short Film Festival and Jaffna International Cinema Festival. Apsara was featured at the Galle Literary Festival, is an alumna of Busan Asian Film School and a Khoj fellow, New Delhi. She is currently working on her debut novel, Spiking my own drink, an exploration of politics, love, and resistance.
Image credit: Kushantha Hewapathirana
Max Cooper
Max Cooper is an audio-visual pioneer and non-conformist with a PhD in Computational Biology which informs his explorations at the intersection of music, science and art. His multimedia collaborations with scientists, mathematicians, architects, coders, designers, directors and visual artists creates audio- visual performances, installations and films. Cooper tours internationally, presenting shows and experiences at landmarks including the Acropolis in Athens and performing at major music and arts festivals around the world. He has collaborated with Zaha Hadid Architects, Dolby, L-Acoustics, 4DSOUND, Barbican Centre, The Babraham Institute and exhibited work at museums including the Pompidou Metz, V&A London, ZKM Karlsruhe, Museum Wave Seoul and The Science Museum London.
Image: Max Cooper - On Being 3D:AV live tour. Photo credit: Ella Mitchell
Evan Ifekoya
Evan Ifekoya is a spirit-led artist and dream architect exploring ancestry, belief and belonging through practices of self-archiving and blackness in abundance. Through their art, they hope to foster a deeper sense of connection and awareness, creating spaces where liberation and refuge are not just ideals but lived experiences. Ifekoya established the collectively run and QTIBPOC (queer, trans*, intersex, black and people of colour)-led Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.) in 2018.
Image credit: Christa Holka
Michel Nieva
Michel Nieva is an Argentinian writer based in New York, where he teaches at NYU. Nominated among Granta's Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists in 2021 and a winner of the O. Henry Award in 2022, Nieva is the author of Dengue Boy (2025).
Image credit: Coni Rosman
Porsha Olayiwola
Porsha Olayiwola is an Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and the author of the collection, I Shimmer Sometimes, Too. She served as the third Poet Laureate for the city of Boston. Olayiwola is a 2020 Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate fellow, and the Assistant Professor of Poetry at Emerson College. Her work can be found in (or forthcoming from) Triquarterly Magazine, Black Warrior Review, The Boston Globe, Essence Magazine, Redivider, Split This Rock, The NBA and elsewhere.
Image credit: Carolina Porras Morray
Plumm
Plumm is a vocalist, composer, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader hailing from South London, England, with a Welsh core. Plumm’s sound is dark, ethereal, alternative, trip-hop, electronic, eerie, improvisational and vocal-heavy. Her song, You Are The One - Live, is the title track for Apple TV's series Liaison. Catch her as Jamz Supernova’s ‘After Dark Discovery’ and Clash Magazine's 'one-to-watch'.
Image credit: Rachel Amy Winton
Sebastián Riffo Valdebenito
Sebastián Riffo Valdebenito is a visual artist and researcher based in Santiago, Chile. His experimental practice explores the relationships between contemporary art, archaeological heritage, and socio-natural disasters in Chile. Working across drawing, painting, video, and installation, he constructs dense visual languages using techniques like collage, frottage, and montage, articulating a poetics of rupture, memory, and affective landscapes.
Image credit: Franco Sovino
Leo Robinson
Leo Robinson is a UK-based artist. His work explores speculative narratives, rituals and games through sculptural installation, sound, video and diagrammatical works. Robinson is represented by Tiwani Contemporary, and was recently awarded the Arts Foundation Futures Award for Visual Arts. Robinson has presented solo exhibitions at London Mithraeum, Indigo + Madder and Chapter Arts Centre and has undertaken residencies at GAS Foundation (NG) and Hospitalfield (UK).
Image credit: Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation
Ofem Ubi
Ofem Ubi is a poet and artist from Nigeria exploring the poetic through visual forms. Drawing prompts from experience, his work upholds a constant query on memory and its manifestations beyond the page. Ubi is a 2024 Prince Claus Seed Award recipient and GAS Foundation Alumni.
Image credit: Ude Ugo
To celebrate the release of Volume I of Earth Rising: Messages from the Pale Blue Dot, Sebastián Riffo Valdebenito, Plumm, MODUPE ensemble (Evan Ifekoya, Eden Alero and Ayeḇainemi Abieyuwa Ése), Max Cooper, and Emilia Álvarez performed their tracks at a special event in London.
Each artist was premiering their new audio works for a live audience. Watch their multi-disciplinary performances here.
Filming: Benjamin Leggett
Editing: TJ Henkelis
Stills photography: Camilla Greenwell
Earth Rising: Messages from the Pale Blue Dot, Volume I preview event was held at Proposition Studios, Bethnal Green on Thursday 19 June, 2025
Earth Rising is commissioned and produced by Artangel, in collaboration with international residency partners and features artists at all stages of their careers living and working across the world.
Partners for Volume I are Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation / Yinka Shonibare Foundation based in Nigeria and the UK, Green Papaya Art Projects in the Philippines, Organhaus in China, Theertha in Sri Lanka, and URRA in Argentina.
Sound and Mastering by Blacklisted Mastering.
Visual identity and Website: Alex Piacentini and Ilaria Roglieri
Artangel would like to thank the following for their contribution to the project: Emilia Álvarez, Nayomi Apsara, Max Cooper, Evan Ifekoya, Michel Nieva, Porsha Olayiwola, Plumm, Sebastiàn Riffo Valdebenito, Leo Robinson, Ofem Ubi, Melina Berkenwald, Belinda Holden, Magda Kaggwa, Jagath Weerasinghe, Ni Kun, Yang Shu, Duruo Wang, Huang Jiao Jody, Norberto Roldan, and Sam Kinchin-Smith.
Earth Rising: Messages from the Pale Blue Dot is commissioned and produced by Artangel.
In partnership with Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation / Yinka Shonibare Foundation , Green Papaya Art Projects, Organhaus, Theertha, and URRA.
With special thanks to Catherine Petitgas.
Artangel is generously supported using public funding by Arts Council England, and by the private patronage of The Artangel International Circle, Special Angels and The Company of Angels.
