Shimmer: Dreaming the Posthuman opens at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, TN, this month, and it wants to change how you think about being human. Seventeen artists are using digital animation, virtual reality, and motion capture to show the bonds between people, animals, and the planet itself — and they are doing it through the uncanny, the marvelous, and the unpredictable.
The exhibition runs from September 25 through January 3, 2027. It is organized by Frist Art Museum Chief Curator Mark Scala.
The Artists Behind the Show
The roster includes Ian Cheng, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Marguerite Humeau, Josèfa Ntjam, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Saya Woolfalk. Each brings a distinct approach to the same question: how do we understand our place in a world that does not revolve around us?
The artists draw on surrealism’s fascination with the marvelous, the uncanny, and the unpredictable. Their work is not abstract theory. It is fluid and floating imagery that morphs, flickers, and dances, forming psychologically charged archetypes within a new collective unconscious.
The Three Sections of the Exhibition
The show is organized into three sections, each tackling a different discipline. The first takes a biological and ecological perspective, focusing on extinction, evolution, and interspecies entanglement.
The second section relates to psychology. Here, the stories are playful and strange. People become microbes and slime. Dreams become poetry. Robots become furious dancers. The idea is to counter the pain of the world with vitality and joy.
The third section deals with ontology — the philosophy of being. It bridges ancestral and contemporary belief systems, especially those beyond modern Western traditions. Artists in this section use new technologies to reawaken humanity’s sense of interconnectedness with the earth.
What the Show Is Really About
The core argument is simple: human exceptionalism has allowed us to ignore the need to care for the more-than-human world. These artists are pushing back against that view.
They are not just making pretty pictures. They are using analog and emergent technologies to visualize the interrelationship between humanity, other species, and the earth itself. That means digital animation, augmented and virtual reality, and motion capture and generative software.
Why Shimmer Matters Now
This is a moment when technology is changing what art can do. The show also addresses a fundamental concern: the relationship between humans and the natural world. By using wonder and enchantment, the artists invite viewers to reconsider that bond.
“Like the surrealists, these artists tap into the transformative agency of the marvelous, the uncanny, and the unpredictable.”
What Visitors Can Expect
The exhibition is designed to be immersive. It moves from the biological to the psychological to the philosophical. That progression is built into the structure of the show.
The first section sets the stage with extinction, evolution, and interspecies entanglement. The second adds the human element, with stories of transformation. The third pulls it all together into a larger statement about existence.
The Takeaway
Shimmer: Dreaming the Posthuman is a serious exhibition that asks big questions. It uses beauty as its answer.
The show is a reminder that art can be both profound and pleasurable. It invites viewers to see themselves as part of a larger system, connected to other species and the earth itself.
Plan your visit at FristArtMuseum.org. The exhibition runs through January 3, 2027.
Source material: “Shimmer: Dreaming the Posthuman,” Hyperallergic.
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