Jakob Kudsk Steensen

Biography

Jakob Kudsk Steensen (b. 1987, Køge, Denmark) is a Danish artist known for immersive environmental storytelling that blends virtual world-building, video game engines, 3D animation, and spatial sound design. Raised by an educational sociologist mother and an engineer father, he has spent more than a decade researching ecosystems in the field before translating them into hybrid physical and virtual landscapes that merge real and imagined nature. His installations often combine glass sculpture, generative sound, and real-time simulation to immerse viewers in speculative ecologies shaped by climate change and human intervention. Steensen has exhibited internationally at institutions including the Serpentine Galleries in London, where his work explored imagination, technology, and ecology, as well as at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, PinchukArtCentre, Times Square Arts, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. He frequently collaborates with sound designers, biologists, and technologists, including longtime collaborator Matt McCorkle, to build interactive worlds informed by field recordings and satellite data. Now based between New York and Berlin, Steensen continues to expand his practice across video games, virtual reality, and large-scale multimedia installation, with recent projects further exploring digital reconstructions of endangered and lost ecosystems. His work has been recognized for pushing the boundaries of how technology can foster ecological empathy and a renewed relationship between audiences and the natural world.