Gathering Ground

How can we support our living worlds?

Gathering Ground explores threatened ecologies. It reflects on what cultivating relationships can look like when they are built on principles of equity. The exhibition brings together artistic practices that defend and embrace interconnectedness in our current ecological crisis.

Ecology refers to the relationships between living beings and their environments. It encompasses the delicate web of connections that sustain us all. Situated in the decommissioned oil and coal power station that is now Tate Modern, Gathering Ground offers a space to share the contradictions and tensions that arise when we think and act ecologically.

Looking at the ground on which we gather, the artworks ask:

How can we live with and make sense of destruction and loss?

How can we develop connections grounded in reciprocity?

What does it mean to be a good custodian for future worlds?

The artists’ practices are firmly grounded in land and place. Their works deal with issues such as displacement, alongside the destruction of waterways and land due to economic and military interests. Some honour Indigenous knowledges, while others highlight strategies for resistance in a precarious world.

At the heart of the exhibition is a new participatory commission by Abbas Zahedi, which hosted a year-long series of talks and workshops across 2025. The programme invited visitors to explore these questions collectively. The shared discussions will form part of Tate’s research, reflecting on how to evolve as a sustainable and equitable museum in the 21st century.

CAROLINA CAYCEDO, YUMA, OR THE LAND OF FRIENDS II

JOYDEB ROAJA, GO BACK TO ROOTS #12, #15, #26 AND #27

The works in this room consider their environments as living beings. Carolina Caycedo and Joydeb Roaja highlight the experiences of communities defending their lands and ways of living. They invite us to reflect on Indigenous kinship with animals, plants and waterways that is lost through industrial developments or state interventions.

Caycedo combines satellite images of the El Quimbo Dam in Colombia during its construction with aerial photographs and maps of the region before the dam was built. Repurposing images typically used for military and extractive purposes, the artist resists exploitative ways of seeing and categorising land and waterways. In doing so, Caycedo creates a portrait of the land across time, drawing our attention to the impact that mega infrastructure projects have on river ecologies.

The dam’s construction displaced local communities, caused extensive environmental damage and redirected Yuma, Colombia’s largest river. Caycedo, who grew up by the river’s basin, explains: ‘I began to understand that the river is a political subject with agency to change the course of events and with a spirit and feeling that becomes an extension of the community that coexists with a river.’

Roaja depicts scenes of people deeply interwoven with the natural world around them. In the series Go Back to Roots, humans, animals and plants grow into each other through dense networks of symbols resembling lungs and leaves. He draws from his relationship to the local forest, which most people in his village depended on for a living. In 1986, the Bangladeshi government destroyed this forest to plant teak trees, causing the loss of many natural streams and bird species.

Roaja belongs to the Tripura, one of the Indigenous Jumma peoples of the Chittatong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh. Growing up with the conflict between the Jumma communities and the government that began in 1977, he has lived through the ongoing suppression and displacement of the Jumma peoples from their ancestral lands. Through his practice, Roaja challenges the state and military’s extractive approaches by honouring harmonious, matriarchal ways of living.

ABBAS AKHAVAN, STUDY FOR A MONUMENT

Study for a Monument is an ongoing body of work that archives plant species native to the ancient region of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in present-day Iraq. Decades of war and state intervention – such as the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), the First Gulf War (1991) and the Invasion of Iraq (2003) – have had devastating consequences on the ecology of this area.

Akhavan has hand sculpted and enlarged each plant out of wax then cast them in bronze. The casts, resembling burnt fragments, are shown on white bed sheets on the ground. They recall pages from botanical studies, confiscated goods or objects laid out for examination. Akhavan’s choice of material is significant, as bronze is linked with ancient Mesopotamian weaponry as well as historical memorials and monuments. The horizontal display on the floor is unlike the traditional vertical orientation of commemorative sculptures. Instead, it evokes makeshift funerary displays, sites of mass burial or piles of shrapnel.

The work draws on research that Akhavan has carried out at Kew Gardens in London and at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. Drawing on the botany and history of Iraq, the work reconsiders monument-making by shifting away from traditions of human-centric memorialisation.

BRUCE CONNER, CROSSROADS

This black and white film shows slow-motion replays of the underwater nuclear bomb tests on Bikini Atoll in Aelon Kein Ad (the Marshall Islands), in the central Pacific Ocean, on 25 July 1946. The film soundtrack consists of two distinct parts. The first section, produced by Patrick Gleason, recreates the sound of bomb explosions, countdowns and plane engines alongside birdsongs. The second part features a psychedelic musical score composed by Terry Riley.

Conner made the film by splicing together declassified footage sourced from the US National Archives, an experimental technique of montage filmmaking. The images Conner relied on were taken by over 300 cameras, which were stationed around the atoll. In the film, the explosion is shown 15 times at different speeds and from different viewpoints.

The United States carried out 67 nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958. Their cumulative force amounted to 7,000 times that of the atomic bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in August 1945. The resulting ecological damage alongside the long-lasting effects of nuclear radiation were devastating. They affect the region to this day, with some of the atolls still being uninhabitable. While residents were evacuated to other islands during the tests, the impact radius was underestimated. Today, the situation in Aelon Kein Ad is aggravated by rising sea levels and the climate emergency.

Made in 1976, CROSSROADS has been described as a portrait of the nuclear era that is both terrifying and has a kind of ‘cataclysmic beauty’. In the context of our current climate crisis, the work can raise questions about environmental justice and whose lifeworlds are deemed disposable.

ABBAS ZAHEDI, BEGIN AGAIN

Abbas Zahedi’s sonic installation creates a space for the collective processing of ecological grief. Through this work the artist asks, ‘How can we make sense of a world increasingly shaped by loss and disconnection?’

Instruments and playback devices, made from recycled materials, have been plugged into Tate Modern’s utility pipes and deeper architecture. Zahedi invites visitors to tune in to the site, engaging in what he describes as ‘seismic resonance’ – a dynamic interplay between sound, body and space.

Our living worlds are formed of interdependent systems and relationships. In Begin Again sound flows through the space like a seismic vibration, uniting different bodies in a shared experience. The composition shifts between moments of harmony and disintegration. Each sonic collapse prompts the piece to rebuild, emphasising the power of renewal and beginning again.

As part of this work, on the first Saturday of each month Zahedi will host a ‘support group’ open to all, in collaboration with thinkers, artists and musicians. Through collective listening and discussion, participants will imagine what new frameworks are needed to protect and restore ecological connectivity.

ABEL RODRÍGUEZ, (MOGAJE GUIHI), THE TREE OF LIFE AND ABUNDANCE

MUNEM WASIF, LAND OF UNDEFINED TERRITORY

The works in this room explore the relationship between land and identity. Abel Rodriguez (Mogaje Guihu) and Munem Wasif create works that call upon the histories of their respective peoples and nations. They speak to the interconnectedness of humanity and our environments, warning against the exploitative misuse of our lands.

Abel Rodríguez was a revered sabedor (wise man), ‘plant namer’ and keeper of the traditions of the Nonuya people. His Indigenous name, Mogaje Guihu, translates to ‘Feather and Sparrowhawk, that shines as the sun’. Part of a lineage of leaders, his clan comes from the headwaters (river source) of the Cahunarí River that forms part of the Colombian Amazon.

In The Tree of Life and Abundance, Rodrigeuz tells the founding myth of the Nonuya, drawing the expansive tree to symbolise his people’s inherent connection to the natural world. He fills the drawing with an abundance of animals, flowers, fruits and seeds. By visually preserving the ecological systems of the Amazon basin, Rodriguez frames human flourishing as dependent on a harmonious way of living with each other and our ecosystems.

Munem Wasif’s photographs in Land of Undefined Territory present a desolate landscape. Taken near the town of Sylhet in North Bangladesh, close to the Indian border, the series documents a land that has witnessed nearly a century of political disputes. The Partition of Bengal in 1947 saw the divide of the region that was followed by mass migration, while the struggle for liberation resulted in the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence. The reverberations still contribute to border tensions between India and Bangladesh.

Wasif’s stark photographs highlight how decades of exhaustive mining and exploitation have transformed the landscape, alluding to the destructive impact of military and industrial activity.

MINERVA CUEVAS, DODGEM SHELL

Dodgem Shell began as an intervention in a dodgem (bumper car) ride at a local fairground in the Mixcoac neighbourhood of Mexico City. Cuevas added the logos of major oil and gas corporations – including Shell, BP, Esso and Petrobras – to the front of the cars. The colliding cars became a metaphor for the destructive force and territorial expansion of the global energy industry.

Beneath the playful surface of the brightly coloured cars lies a critique of corporate power, reflecting on the historical and continued exploitation of natural resources globally. The Dodgem intervention remained active for 8 years, until the fairground closed and the area was redeveloped.

Since 1998, much of Cuevas’s interventionist practice has been developed through her non-profit project, Mejor Vida Corp. (Better Life Corporation). The project distributes free items and services worldwide, such as international student ID cards, subway tickets, grocery discount barcodes and letters of recommendation. It also distributes posters and creates public murals. These visual campaigns often adopt the language of comics and advertising to interrogate capitalist systems.

Cuevas describes these small yet purposeful actions as ‘“micro-sabotage.’” They reimagine how goods and services circulate, and who has access to them. Through her interventions, she repurposes familiar symbols of consumption, transforming them into tools for disrupting and challenging systems of environmental and economic exploitation.

OUTI PIESKI, GURŽOT JA GUOVSSAT AND SKÁBMAVUOĐĐU

In Guržot ja guovssat (Spell on You!) and Skábmavuođđu (Spell on Me!), Outi Pieski addresses the suppression and erasure of Sámi customs, languages and rights.

The artist created elements of the installation with women duodjárs (duodji practitioners) in Finland, Norway and Sweden using Sámi shawl-crafting techniques. The Sámi practice of ‘duodji’ was marginalised following the Nordic colonisation of Sápmi, the traditional territory of the Sámi people that extends across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Not to be confused with the concept of ‘craft’, duodji merges practical making skills with Sámi values, spirituality and environmental knowledge.

In Sámi philosophy, the past is considered part of the present and the future. It highlights our responsibility towards past and future generations. Pieski sees duodji and the collective act of tying knots as a fundamental aspect of her work, creating living connections across time. As she explains, ‘duodji is a collective way of creating, a counterforce against individual-centeredness.’

The works on display embody the Sámi philosophy of ‘soabadit’ (positive reciprocity), a worldview that sees all entities as equal beings. Pieski’s practice highlights the need to protect the Arctic environment from exploitation as a source of minerals, fossil fuels and renewable energy. Through her work she advocates for the inherent rights and value of all living things, emphasising the interdependence of Earth’s systems.

ZHENG BO, PTERIDOPHILIA I

Zheng Bo’s work explores interspecies connections. The film shows six people walking through the Taiwanese forest, where they enter into physical and emotional contact with ferns. They form relationships that are both erotic and intimate. Zheng’s work is informed by queer ecology. It embraces fluidity, rejecting binary understandings of ‘nature’ as well as set categories such as human and non-human. In this film, the artist challenges the idea that humankind is separate and superior to non-human life.

Zheng explains, ‘People always ask about exploitation after they watch the film, which is partly my intention. I wanted people to think about our ethical relationships with plants.’ For most societies it is ‘natural’ to eat plants but ‘unnatural’ to make love to them. Plants are treated as resources, only valued for their gastronomic, aesthetic and medicinal functions.

Pteridophilia I challenges us to cultivate relationships – erotic or otherwise – with other species. Zheng invites us to reflect on radical forms of human-plant connection and coexistence that don’t rely on domination or control. As the artist highlights, ‘Only when we extend our imagination can we learn to appreciate the complex existence of all living things.’