Medium: Installation
Dimensions: Variable
Sound by Tim Russell
Year: 2026 - ongoing
A FRAGILE UNFOLDING: FROM THE SEAT TO THE HORIZON
An Exhibition by Meg Mitchell written by Leah Kolb
Meg Mitchell's A Fragile Unfolding is a screen-based digital environment embedded within a
physical installation that partially mirrors it. Although utilizing game development software,
Mitchell intentionally programmed a world that subverts the expectations of traditional video
gaming: there are no goals, rewards, or points to earn, no killing, winning, or narrative
progression. Instead, players are asked to navigate a landscape composed of floating islands of
ice with a shifting ambient soundtrack and rotating satellites emitting beams of light. It is as
poetically atmospheric as it is desolate and unforgiving. Movement through this space is cyclical,
unstable, and perhaps even frustrating, as visitors are repeatedly displaced or
redirected—producing an experience where personal agency is momentary, contingent, and
never fully secured.
Certain aspects of the virtual realm are echoed in tangible objects. The jagged glacial islands of
the archipelago, for example, appear as 3D-printed sculptures and also take the form of pin-and-
string drawings on the wall. The logic of game programming—grids, hexagons, and the
repetition of basic elements—is reflected in other parts of the gallery, such as the constellation of
geometric stools and the patterned porcelain tiles. However, where the onscreen
landscape can be bleak and unforgiving, the physical installation, with its crocheted textiles, tiles,
shelving, and cushioned seating, introduces allusions to the domestic. These gestures toward
comfort heighten the exhibition's tension, placing bodily ease alongside digital vexation.
By refusing the transactional nature of games and the immersive promise of cyber-escape, the
exhibition redirects attention back to the viewer’s body in actual space and time. These
reverberations between the simulated and the real invite critical thinking about how the
mechanics and affective qualities of the game space (isolation, existential questioning, and
illusions of progress that undermine one's autonomy), hint at broader systems of power and
control that shape everyday life.