In collaboration with Japan’s Deaf-Blind community

Over the last year, we have been deeply world-building with Natsumi Wada, a designer, researcher, and Child of Deaf Adults (CODA). After seeing Morphogenic Angels: Chapter 1, Natsumi recognised herself in the main character, Yaxu, and reached out saying, “Ah… that’s me.”

What began as a shared recognition grew into a profound collaboration. Natsumi brought members of her community from Japan’s Deaf-Blind network to London for a one-week residency at Somerset House, where we embedded ourselves in each other’s lives , living, creating, and learning side by side.

The opening question was simple but vast: Can a diverse group of people with different sensory and cultural backgrounds come together to create a shared world and language?

Throughout the week, we ran a series of embodied world-building workshops, exploring how to communicate the complex ideas of Morphogenic Angels to collaborators who could not see, hear, or speak the same language as us. Together, we experimented with touch, gesture, sound, and movement as bridges of meaning, finding new ways to co-create across sensory worlds.

This process evolved into a deeper inquiry: How can we think about accessibility at every stage of creation, not as an afterthought, but as the foundation of how we build worlds?

Through this work, we began developing new Morphogenic Angels characters together, each emerging from the lived experiences and sensory realities of our collaborators.

Main Collaborators

Our ongoing research team is led by Deaf-Blind haptic designer and artist Hayato Tabata (Sakura Sky), researcher and CODA Natsumi Wada, and blind programmer and game designer Yukio Nozawa, who has created over 50 audio games connecting sighted and non-sighted players. Together, they form the heart of Be–Longing and our continuing R&D for Morphogenic Angels: Chapter 2.

Led by Natsumi Wada, in collaboration with Sakura Sky and Hana Omori, for MUNCH Museum (Oslo)

This workshop marked a milestone for Keiken: it was the first time a project was directed by someone outside the founding team. Led by Natsumi Wada, designer, researcher, Child of Deaf Adults (CODA), and our ongoing research partner for Morphogenic Angels: Chapter 2, in collaboration with Sakura Sky, a Deaf-Blind artist, haptic designer, and also our ongoing collaborator for Morphogenic Angels: Chapter 2, the workshop extended our research into a space of deep listening and embodied connection. Over two days, we worked with Deaf-Blind students from their school at MUNCH Museum, and later at their own school, one of the only institutions in the world for children born Deaf-Blind.

Because these students are among the most protected children in Norway, we could only take non-identifiable photos, mostly of hands, gestures, and light. We discovered that when students were taken from their wheelchairs to the floor, their bodies opened up with new freedom. The space transformed, filled with cushions, sensory objects, darkness, sound, and projection, becoming a soft portal where communication wasn’t spoken, but felt. At their school, we joined a yoga class designed to help students self-regulate through gesture and breath. There was a glowing ballpit and a waterbed with speakers beneath, so they could feel the music. Together with Helena, we reflected on the challenge of documenting such subtle communication, where even a pause, a shift in breath, a micro-gesture can be someone’s word. Each student has many carers, yet their language of expression is so personal that shared understanding must be built slowly—through time, repetition, and trust. This isn’t only about supporting expression, it’s about learning their language too:

a shared memory of movement,

a vocabulary of care.

Originally commissioned by Helsinki Biennale, curated by Joasia Krysa

We’re delighted to announce the opening of Ángel Yōkai Atā (Angel Spirit House) our first permanent public artwork, now part of the HAM Helsinki Art Museum Collection and the City of Helsinki’s public art collection.

The work was originally commissioned for Helsinki Biennale 2023, curated by Joasia Krysa, and has now found a permanent home in Kalasatamanpuisto, Kalasatama, Helsinki. The location is especially meaningful the Spirit House sits beside a local school. We invited the children to become the guardians of the spirit beings that live inside, watching over them and keeping their presence alive. Through this gesture, the work becomes part of the community’s daily rhythm a living exchange between the seen and unseen.

Manchester International Festival (MIF)

What if your life is a game but the rules were never written by you? This question became the starting point for months of collaborative research with Ella Toone as part of our project for Manchester International Festival. Through collaborative games, embodied mapping, and symbolic design, we explored Ella’s inner world, her instincts, her Shetland Pony spirit animal, and how she navigates pressure, performance, and emotion.

Midway through the process, Ella experienced a profound personal loss. In her article £10, she reflects on the guiding presence of her father, a thread that deeply resonated with our framework, Invisible Thread Theory, which explores unseen energies that quietly shape our paths. From this, we developed the archetype of The Divine Puppeteer, a symbolic force that gently guides us, like fate with feeling. In this work, that archetype became Nick, Ella’s father: an invisible presence shaping her choices, offering strength, and silently pulling the threads of her journey forward. The resulting piece became a quiet homage, to him, and to the instinct, love, and resilience that continue to move through Ella. This is not just an artwork to be seen. it’s one to be felt, a sensory and emotional encounter with the unseen forces that shape us.

An Embodied World-Building Exploration of Diplomacy and Soft Power

We recently ran a workshop under the GAC program (in collaboration with the British Embassy, Paris) that asked: what might diplomacy look like in 1,000 years?

In this embodied world-building workshop, participants first observed from outside through a window, like watching a live performance or television, while Hana and Isabel collected small precious objects from the garden. These items were then brought inside to play with, and participants were invited to interact, rearrange, and sense with them. The workshop explored diplomacy and soft power through play, embracing non-verbal and non-conforming communication, and centering the preciousness of nature at both micro and macro scales.

Onassis x British Council

This January, Keiken took part in Circular Cultures Design School 2025, a one-week program co-organised by Onassis and the British Council. Throughout the week, we shared our technical pipeline, game development methods, and empathy-based world-building practices. We also led a perception game—a performative workshop inviting students to close their eyes and encounter the world through fruit, vegetables, and sensory imagination. The workshop explored how sight, symbolism, and intuition shape creation—using gaze, automatic writing, and collaboration to build new identities and shared stories. By shifting perception, participants discovered new ways of connecting with themselves, others, and the worlds they imagine.

We are grateful to be presenting “Morphogenic Angels: Chapter 1” in the exhibition Choose your Player. Gaming from Dice to Pixel at the Zeppelin Museum in Germany and we are in great company alongside artworks by LuYang, Larry Achiampong and Afrah Shafiq.

“Morphogenic Angels” is our ongoing worldbuilding project; an exploration of a future 1000 years from now, where humans have become “Angels” through the organic re-engineering of their cells, enabling them to embody varied types of consciousness.

The exhibition centres on the profound impact gaming has on culture and explores the socio-political relevance of games and reflects on the impact of gaming in numerous areas of life. People play games not just for fun, but to compete, learn, and connect with others. Games are universal, diverse, and adaptable, reflecting and shaping social discourse. The curator Mara Kölmel did an interview for the ARD Tagesschau from inside the ballpit.

For a while now, we have been deeply immersed in designing and developing our unique haptic wearable womb technology. This technology has undergone some big advancements in preparation for ourspecial commission, Spirit Systems of Soft Knowing ༊*·˚, at Amos Rex in Helsinki.

For our immerive intallation at Amos Rex, we added more haptics to enhance the three dimenional, vibrational and sonic experience. Imagine immersing yourself in a world where the sounds and vibrations of whales, dolphins, mice, birds, and even elemental forces such as water and wind, surround you. We also incorporated cosmic sounds and chimes to elevate the sensory experience. The experience isn’t just about hearing or seeing: it’s about feeling. The haptic wombs activate the stomach area, creating a deeply sensory, embodied and participatory experience for the audience.

The installation, Spirit Systems of Soft Knowing ༊·˚*, is part of Amos Rex’s triennial series of commissioned works. These works are designed to make innovative use of technology, while critically examining its role in our lives. Unlike most mainstream technology, which often lacks a holistic and embodied approach, our haptic wombs emphasize touch, an incredibly valuable sense that is more and more overlooked in modern society.

By merging the architecture of the sacred and ancient womb (the original technology, which is not limited to humans) with the sounds of animals and elements, we tried to establish a profound link to our bodies and our shared existence with other creatures. Each element of the installation is alive, forming an interconnected ecosystem that offers a new way to experience and understand our world.

We loved being in Kanazawa (Japan) and working with the amazingly dedicated team to set up “Morphogenic Angels (Chapter 1)” as part of the exhibition “DXP (Digital Transformation Planet): Towards the Next Interface” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art back in September. Following the earthquake on January 1st, the show had to close early due to damages in the exhibition spaces. Nevertheless, the museum team were quick to act and they found an alternative solution and so the work continues to be on view until the end of March. We are very thankful for their help, kindness and care throughout the whole process.

We gave a keynote speech at REFRESH #5 in Zurich, focusing on our ongoing worldbuilding project “Morphogenic Angels”. Initiated by the Department of Design and the Immersive Arts Space of the Zurich University of the Arts, REFRESH #5 took place under the title “New Realities: Design – Arts – Technology” and it brought together designers, artists, researchers and experts from Switzerland and abroad to anticipate possible futures for the Design and the Arts. In her speech, Tanya from our team articulated our collaborative and symbiotic production team that shifts based on the needs of our creative direction.

Being one of Chanel’s inaugural Next Prize recipients was a great honour. We loved being part of the programme and getting to know the inspiring and motivating work of the other participating artists. Overall, this was a transformative step for us and we are very thankful for getting to experience it. In late October 2023, we had the final get-together with the other winners and the Chanel team, to discuss our collective personal and professional development and reflect on the Next Prize journey together.

So happy to have been shortlisted for the CIRCA Prize 2023! Throughout September 2023, 30 international artists saw their work appear at 20:23 local time on the iconic Piccadilly Lights and across the CIRCA global platform of digital screens. The theme of this year’s prompt was “hope,” and our work, “The Bubble Theory” (screened on September 10th) explored this by embracing the alchemy of positive & negative; acknowledging an oscillating state of flux of the universe. Many congratulations to Cemile Sahin for her video work “Four Ballads for My Father” and JJ Agcaoili and Xin Wen for “EMERGE:NCY”, as well as to all other shortlisted entries!

Being part of the “Connecting” exhibition at KANAL – Centre Pompidou in Brussels was a great experience. The exhibition was curated by Bas Hendrikx and Barbara Cueto, and our work in it, “Morphogenic Angels (Chapter 1)” was co-commissioned by KANAL and the Helsinki Biennal/HAM and supported by Saastamoinen Foundation. Thank you for having us!

Following the premiere of the game Morphogenic Angels in Playthrough Part 1 with drag performer Hungry on their twitch channel & HAU 4. Serpentine Arts Technologies presented Morphogenic Angels: Playthrough Part 2 live on Serpentine Twitch (@serpentineUK) hosted by arts & technologies producer Roisin McVeigh.

Morphogenic Angels explores a speculative future in which people gain transhuman abilities through organic modifications. This second playthrough explores our experimental approach to using the game engine, Unreal Engine 5, as well as world building, production processes and approaches to designing custom animations, such as the lead characters Yaxu and Anamt’u’ul.

Morphogenic Angels is a game is a commission by HAU Hebbel am Ufer / In co-presentation with HAU Hebbel am Ufer

So pleased to have been been listed as an NFT artist to watch by Maria Paula Fernandez in Forbes! The article details our latest web 3.0 project, Wisdoms for Neknel, Thank you so much for writing about us, Maria.

Wisdoms for Neknel is our ongoing NFT project and community in collaboration with Daata and artists obso1337. Wisdoms for Neknel’s origins began with us thinking about how to create a currency that is inherently philosophical, with the intention that tools such as money, could be adapted through the blockchain. It led to us creating a speculative world where WISDOM is a currency. In our world the only way one can collect items that are not already free is through the process of generating and sharing wisdom. Wisdom in Neknel is generated first through seeds; talks with amazing thinkers and luminaries such as Mindy Seu, Penny Rafferty and Ruth Catlow, Wade Wallerstein, Helen Pritchard, Eileen Isagon Skyers and Yasaman Sheri. These conversations are then fed to an ai that generates our own in-game wisdom currency. This takes the form of wisdom vessels which can be harvested and used as an in-game currency inside our world.

Visit Neknel here!

We created a new site-specific pavilion with sculptures called Ángel Yōkai Atā (Angel Spirit House) for Helsinki Biennial. Helsinki Biennial 2023, New directions May emerge, is the second edition of the Biennial and is curated by the amazing Joasia Krysa, thank you for your faith in us and encouraging us to explore a completely new facet of our practice!

The title translates as ‘ángel’ in Spanish and English, ‘spirit’ in Japanese and ‘house’ in Teneek, the language of the Huasteca people of Mexico. This Angel Spirit House Is a home for spirits from our speculative future and the spirits are an offering to the island. When encountering Ángel Yōkai Atā, we invite visitors to just be. The concept can be captured by a mantra we created:

‘A spirit is not just a spiritual thing, it is everything and to be a student of the invisible is the practice of compassion. Omoiyari.’

The Spirit House will be on view at Kuninkaansaari islands in Helsinki until 17 September 2023 and has been presented in Wallpaper, Ocula, The Arts Newspaper, Artnet News & Casa Brutus.

It was really amazing to speak in conversation with artist Lu Yang and moderator Sunny Cheung (M+ Curator of Design and Architecture) at M+, Hong Kong, on the Alternate Visions of the Future panel as part of their event, How to Build a Better Metaverse? where we presented the game we are developing as part of our ongoing world build project, Morphogenic Angels. Thank you to the M+ team for having us.

We are very pleased to present our new commission for Somerset House’ ‘Channel’, Morphogenic Angels. it is the film version, a playthrough, of the demo of our game; a futuristic transhuman love story from our ongoing world-building project, Morphogenic Angels, set in a reimagined future 1000 years from now. Channel is Somerset House’s new curated online space for art, ideas, and the artistic process and a perfect home for this piece. Thank you to the whole Somerset House Team, we are so happy that this is available now!

Watch here.

We also had a great conversation with Francesca Gavin about the project, you can read the article here.

We recently spoke about our world-building approach and making games alongside Alexander Kluge, Gabriel Massan, Hans Ulrich Obrist on the Gaming Agency panel at the DLD conference in Munich. We also discussed our work Player of Cosmic Realms which is currently on show at the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Dusseldorf, as part of the Worldbuilding exhibition curated by Hans Ulrch Obrist and on until January 2024.

The World-Building exhibition has recently toured to Centre Pompidou-Metz where we are showing the playthrough our new game Morphogenic Angels Chapter 1 which will also be on show until January 2024.

We also recently collaborated with Gabriel Massan on a series of images, Omoiyari.

April was the first coming together of the inaugural winners and jurors of the CHANEL Next Prize in Venice during the 59th Venice Biennale. It was so amazing to meet and connect with the other next prize winners for the first time and discover that although we have such different practices we share so much in common. It was wonderful to also meet the jurors, Tilda Swinton and David Adjaye and take part in round table discussions with the other prize winners as the journey the Next Prize takes us on begins unfolding.

We are also thrilled to announce we were featured on the front cover of The Arts Newspaper China!

We presented Wisdoms for Love 3.0, an online decision-making game and non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles project that is playable both online and on-site at the Thailand Biennale (Butterflies Frolicking on the Mud: Engendering Sensible Capital), Korat 2021. The Biennale was curated by Yuko Hasegawa, Seiha Kurosawa & Vipash Purichanont.

We were very pleased to speak on the panel and present our project to the local community alongside the other artists exhibiting at the biennale. Thank you to Yuko Hasegawa for always supporting and believing in our practice!

We are pleased to announce we are one of the winners of the CHANEL NEXT PRIZE.

The Chanel Next Prize is a global biennial prize recognising game-changing artists who are radically defining their fields. The prize is an international award to catalyse innovation across arts and culture. Developed to provide an emerging generation of creative risk-takers with resources to tackle ambitious new projects, the CHANEL Next Prize creates conditions for artists to experiment with visionary ideas, test new forms of artmaking and collaborate across disciplines.

Awarded biennially, artists are nominated anonymously by an advisory board of 25 arts and cultural leaders from around the world representing diverse disciplines ranging from film to the visual arts.

A truly global prize that celebrates the fluidity between different art forms, the 2021 Chanel Next Prize winners represent 11 countries and disciplines spanning design, film and the performing and visual arts.

The members of the 2021 jury were Cao Fei, Sir David Adjaye and Tilda Swinton.

Find out more here.