About Jakob Kudsk Steensen

Jakob Kudsk Steensen (b. 1987, Denmark) is an artist working with environmental storytelling through virtual world building, video games, spatial sound and large-scale installations. The artist creates interpretations of overlooked natural phenomena, from newly discovered volcanic deep sea landscapes, temporary desert lakes and forgotten swamps, to songs of extinct birds found in natural history archives. He points towards unaddressed, unrevealed or unspoken narratives surrounding climate change—how it alters our bodies and our minds, plays with our memories and restructures our collective unconscious. 

His practice is rooted in extensive periods of fieldwork, often developed in collaboration with field biologists, composers, and philosophers. Key collaborators include environmental philosopher Melanie Challenger, musician ARCA, performer and vocalist Lyra Pramuk, experimental cellist Okkyung Lee, Musical Director of the Philip Glass Ensemble Michael Riesman, ornithologist and author Dr. Douglas H. Pratt, South Korean pop band BTS, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, among others.

Steensen’s most recent commissions include The Song Trapper at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2025-26), Boreal Dreams at Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2025) and Psychosphere at Cisternerne, Copenhagen (2025). Prior to this, Steensen exhibited The Ephemeral Lake at Tokyo’s Mori Museum in 2025, following the artworks premiere at Hamburger Kunsthalle (DE) in 2024. His large-scale installation Berl-Berl, commissioned by LAS Art Foundation for Halle am Berghain in Berlin (2021), was later presented at ARoS in Denmark in 2022, and at the 2024 Gwangju Biennale in Korea. His work Liminal Lands was commissioned by LUMA Foundation in Arles, France for their inaugural exhibition Prelude in 2021, and Catharsis was commissioned by Serpentine in 2020 as part of Connect BTS. In 2019, he received the Serpentine Augmented Architecture commission which led to the creation of The Deep Listener with Google Arts and Culture. Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s work is part of the collections of Fondation Louis Vuitton, LUMA Foundation, KADIST, LAS Art Foundation, ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art, ARoS, SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, amongst others.

Jakob Kudsk Steensen is the recipient of the best VR graphics at the 2019 Cinequest Festival for Technology and Cinema, the Prix du Jury (2019) at Les Rencontres Arles, the Webby Award - People’s Choice VR (2018), and the Games for Change Award - Most Innovative 2018, among others..

Kudsk Steensen’s artworks are in the collections of the Luma Foundation, KADIST, LAS, Arken Museum of Art, ARoS Museum of Art, SMK - National Museum of Art Denmark, amongst others.