Nelly-Eve Rajotte
Trees communicate with each other at 220 hertz
December 5, 2025—April 19, 2026
In her first Calgary exhibition, Montreal-based artist Nelly-Eve Rajotte presents the large-scale multi-media installation, Trees communicate with each other at 220 hertz (2024). Combining moving image, generative sound, and technological devices that listen through a modular synthesizer connected to a live tree, this immersive, sensory work brings nature, technology and the romantic imagination in dialogue to consider the deeper connections within our ecosystem.
Forests are the lungs of the earth. Trees are sanctuaries, they are our relatives, our teachers, our allies. Poetic or trite statements about the beauty and importance of forests abound, yet human attitudes toward their preservation and care remain fickle. Dark fantasies about the mysteries to be discovered deep in the woods, adventures that provide formative experiences and steel a hero’s resolve, the solace to be found in the trees’ majestic fold, all populate our collective imaginary since childhood, obscuring humbler truths and setting humanity apart from nature.
Exploring both emotional and physical terrains, Rajotte’s installation draws audiences into a space of profound contemplation and communion. While the panoramic vista she creates, inspired by the boreal forest, evokes the sublime landscape tradition of painters like Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner, here the viewer is not confronted but embraced. Inviting an intimate encounter between the self and the vastness of the external world, the work opens a path to receptivity and empathy.
Oscillating in and out of visibility, Rajotte’s spectral cinematic space requires the viewer to actively participate, moving between observation and immersion. Through LiDAR scanning, she digitally archives endangered sites, building a three-dimensional memory that considers non-human modes of capturing the landscape. Addressing climate change and the disappearance of species, the work urges reflection on the fragility of the living world and on new forms of technological memory. A trail of breadcrumbs leads us to the understanding that the forest was always home.
Curated by Mona Filip.
Nelly-Eve Rajotte. The trees talk to each other at 220 Hertz, 2024. 3-channel video installation, 4K, colour, generative sound, 25 min, modular synthesizer, electrodes, and tree.
Credits:
VFX artist / Software developer: Codrin-Mihail Tablan Negrei
3D laser expertise – iSCAN 3D: Richard Lapointe
Upcoming Programs
Program Archive
Photo by: Christian Barré
About the Artist
Nelly-Eve Rajotte
(she/her)
Nelly-Eve Rajotte is a professor at the UQAM School of Design, where she leads the Moving Image and Sound Design axis. A visual and media artist, she structures her practice around moving images, sound, immersion, and the notion of experience, through performance and installation. Her research-creation explores non-human ways of perceiving and imaging the landscape using LiDAR, biosensors, artificial intelligence, and robotics as well as the sensitive relationships between technology, body, and environment. Her works, recognized for their immersive and monumental dimension, question the conditions of reception and propose new forms of perceptual otherness. Presented in Quebec at institutions such as the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MACM), the Musée d’art de Joliette (MAJ), Fonderie Darling, Occurrence, Clark, Optica, and Circa, they have also circulated in numerous international festivals and events, including MUTEK, the International Festival of Films on Art, Transmediale, the International Short Film Festival of Berlin, Lab30, ISEA, and the KIKK Festival (Belgium). Rajotte’s work will be exhibited at Emerson Contemporary (Boston) in 2026, and is part of several public collections, including that of Hydro-Québec.
