The Vision
Drawing inspiration from Bhambra's contemplative EP "Clouds," this site-specific installation reimagined the sacred volume of Holy Trinity Church, Roehampton, as an ethereal cloudscape where suspended translucent fabrics respond to the melodic language of the kalimba.
Using 350 meters of lightweight bespoke fabric suspended throughout the church's 16-meter height, the installation created multiple stratified layers that referenced natural cloud formations while responding to live musical performance through dynamic lighting and gentle air currents.
Sound Design: Kulvir Bhambra
Art Direction: Andy Harper
Installation Design: Kulvir Bhambra & Andy Harper
Lighting & Sound Engineering: David Brookes
Technical Support: Truxalis Recording
Technology: Responsive lighting systems, kinetic elements, projection mapping
Venue: Holy Trinity Church, Roehampton, London SW15 4LA
Presented at: Wandsworth Arts Fringe 2025
Performance dates: June 6-7, 2025
Themes: Elevation & Transcendence, Sacred & Contemporary, Community & Connection
Previous presentations: Leicester Sound Season, Spirit to Matter exhibition
Documentation: Professional photography and video archive available
Art Direction: Andy Harper
Installation Design: Kulvir Bhambra & Andy Harper
Lighting & Sound Engineering: David Brookes
Technical Support: Truxalis Recording
Technology: Responsive lighting systems, kinetic elements, projection mapping
Venue: Holy Trinity Church, Roehampton, London SW15 4LA
Presented at: Wandsworth Arts Fringe 2025
Performance dates: June 6-7, 2025
Themes: Elevation & Transcendence, Sacred & Contemporary, Community & Connection
Previous presentations: Leicester Sound Season, Spirit to Matter exhibition
Documentation: Professional photography and video archive available
Sacred Meets Contemporary
Clouds: Elevated explores the dialogue between contemporary digital art and architectural heritage, using the church's existing anchor points and Gothic arches as both structural support and symbolic resonance. The installation honored the contemplative atmosphere of the sacred space while amplifying themes of elevation, transcendence, and community connection.
Technology as Bridge
Through responsive lighting systems and kinetic elements, the installation demonstrated how technology can serve as a bridge between digital and spiritual realms—creating entry points for transcendent experience without requiring specific cultural or artistic knowledge. The technology becomes invisible; what remains is pure feeling and connection.
Themes Explored
Impermanence & Change: Constant, subtle movement reminding us that all exists in a state of flux
Sacred & Contemporary: Juxtaposing traditional sacred space with modern technology
Community & Connection: Creating shared experience in a space already important to the local community
Contemplation & Presence: Encouraging mindfulness, deep listening, and present-moment awareness
The Experience
Visitors encountered an evolving environment where their movements influenced both sonic and visual elements. The space encouraged contemplation and connection, creating a temporary community within the historic setting. Live performances featured scheduled moments when musicians activated the full potential of the installation, with kalimba melodies triggering cascades of light and movement through the suspended cloudscape.
Context
Presented as part of Wandsworth Arts Fringe 2025, Clouds: Elevated built upon successful presentations at Leicester's Sound Season and Spirit to Matter exhibition. The Holy Trinity Church setting provided a unique opportunity to explore how contemporary digital art can amplify rather than compete with sacred architecture.
Q&A - Clouds: Elevated
Following their ethereal installation at Holy Trinity Church, Roehampton, sound artist Kulvir Bhambra and visual artist Andy Harper took part in a live Q&A session with questions from the audience. Here's what they shared about their collaborative work "Clouds: Elevated," the Leicester experimental scene, and using technology to create pathways to transcendence.
Let's start with the big question - what's driving you? What's behind your desire to do this work?
Kulvir: For some reason I like to take a very small subject and just create that subject into a little project just for my own amusement. Many moons ago I started taking pictures on my phone of little tiny insects on the foliage and flowers in my front garden, and that ended up being a very small project but just for self-amusement, self-indulgent. I still think it's my greatest body of work personally! It's called A Bug's Life and it was literally just taking the mick out of pop culture, but the insight I got from learning about little insects and seeing a whole hidden universe in amongst the foliage and flowers - that process is my driving force. Anytime I apply that process to anything I seem to get something meaningful out of it.
This particular project started off with me receiving a kalimba and I just started doing phone recordings, playing the kalimba and making short pieces. Really I just wanted to amuse my little baby cousin sister - she's about 10 years younger than me and I've got a good relationship with her. I just wanted to impress her really. Then what ended up happening was I had a studio session booked out and had nothing to take to the studio, so I ended up taking these phone recordings and it just developed.
Andy: My art practice was my inspiration. I've been exploring and extending it for the last 20-25 years and I've refined it to a shortened summary: I'm looking at consciousness and technology. I'm really keen on helping people find pathways into consciousness and to access the divine. There's many different words for the divine and I'm looking to break down barriers and get people into spaces like this to find a way of accessing the spirit, that power that we all have within us.
I'm fascinated with technology. I studied graphics and was told to embrace technology, so with the cat out of the bag with tech and AI thrust upon us - society doesn't seem to have a choice - so I've decided to try and embrace the technology that we do have and to use it in ways that help us connect. I think my work is all about connection, it's about bringing us together and uniting us.
How did this collaboration come about?
Kulvir: I'm still part of a big 17-piece jazz ensemble - we do spiritual jazz, I'm the percussionist in the band. Being in a band and hidden away at the back playing percussion with other people to rely on, I kind of wanted to do a solo performance. I kept talking big game about doing a solo performance, got called up on it and eventually signed up to do an open mic. My first ever solo performance was about 7 minutes long and that was January 19th, 2023, and since then it's just built and built.
I was there photographing an event because I do photography as well - that was my in on the music scene and getting to know people. Andy was there doing these really crazy visuals that were reacting to audio. So he was on my radar and after a while I approached Andy. He'd seen me perform Clouds in March 2024, and I had a conversation with Andy - can we do this, this is what I'm thinking, I need visuals, would you like to do visuals with me?
Andy: We had an initial meeting in this lovely little micro pub in the city centre and we just had this amazing connection. Everything that Kulvir was talking about in terms of wanting to do more than just music and having a screen at the back with wonderful patterns happening - it needs to come out and it needs to be something. He said "I want to float on a cloud" and I just popped off and was like "right, we can do this, we can do this, we can do this!" Then it just built from there.
Andy, can you talk about the technology aspect - how the visuals respond to sound?
Andy: It's a reasonably new advancement in technology that 20 years ago you couldn't have done. With the advent of processing power and graphics power like GPU, you can do things in real time now. 25 years ago I wanted to do this sort of thing but the technology wasn't there yet. Now I'm using tools that allow inputs to create outputs in real time - in this case it's audio input with sound, and we have ambitions to do more work with sensory inputs and outputs.
Technology is my bridge between the digital and spiritual realms. Many people either feel disconnected from spirituality or intimidated by contemporary art. By using responsive light installations and audiovisual technology, I'm creating entry points - ways for people to experience something transcendent without needing specific cultural or artistic knowledge. The tech becomes invisible; what remains is pure feeling and connection.
What about the physical installation - how did you manage to get this up in the church?
Andy: We honestly arrived here and didn't know if we were going to be able to lift this up! When we scoped the space out we realised there's four anchor points in the building and we thought they were going to be anchor points in the ceiling, but actually these metal bars above us have very thin paracord attached to them which go down to each column. That was our way in. We replaced the thin paracord with thicker rope and I'm a rock climber as well, which gives me a good sense of understanding rope work, knots and some of the health and safety aspects. I tend to gravitate towards installations that work with height and ropes because it's something in my skill set.
There seems to be a deeper mission behind this work - can you talk about connection and community?
Andy: Social media is becoming increasingly polarised - we're almost being encouraged to fight and pick sides. I think humans are inherently tribal beings, we do operate in small groups, but the reason we do it is to connect and unite people rather than to pick sides. We hope to inspire but ultimately to connect and bring people together in physical spaces and leave them with a sense of wonder.
The visuals were reacting to the sounds that Kulvir was making, but on a broader sense it's a participatory event. As you were walking up here and ringing the bells, you're actually contributing to this three-dimensional cloudscape that we've created. That in itself feeds back to hopefully help people understand that we're all connected to each other and we're all equal.
Kulvir, you mentioned Leicester's music scene - how important has that been to your development?
Kulvir: There's a big underground grassroots music scene in Leicester and experimental music sits within that, as does jazz, rock, indie, punk, hip-hop and more urban music. Some of the things happening in the city involving dancers, visual artists and musicians was really interesting. There is a small group of individuals in the city that do lighting and projections and make it more than just performers - really making an immersive experience.
One of my dear friends, Leonie Du-Barry Gurr, put on amazing experimental avant-garde evenings and they've always been really what we experienced tonight. The doors have always been closed for me, and then just having a conversation with Andy... From there we got this residency at the LCB Art Center in Leicester and we did our first installation. It was really small in comparison to this, we did a second one, then we got booked again.
How did you discover the Wandsworth Arts Fringe?
Andy: We heard through the grapevine that Wandsworth had a young festival that would be very inviting for experimental works like us. If you want to get into established venues, you've got to be a well-established artist, so there aren't that many events for experimental artists. We'd heard Wandsworth was a hot tip and we've been quite impressed with the organisation and general vibe.
The origins of this actually came from a cathedral - I'd been approached to do something in Lincoln Cathedral a couple of years ago, they brought a new bishop in and it fell through. Then we were looking to do something in Leicester Cathedral and that fell through, but the seeds were sewn and I've been thinking about how do we fill a space and use these kind of active visuals. The juxtaposition of historic space with modern tech feels perfect to me.
What's next for this work?
Andy: We have ambitions to do more work like this with sensory inputs and outputs.
This year, we have a festival coming up next month that I'm doing the visuals for, I’m planning on playing with some larger scale lighting arrays. Then in August we have a commission to do the Beacon Hill Sculptural Trail in Charnwood Forest - we're excited to take this installation outside and play with nature. We'd love to build on the participatory premise - that the sounds that people make, ringing a bell or playing instruments along with the sound of birds, could actually contribute to the soundscape, building on what we've done here. We are also really keen to get this into more spaces with plenty of height - excited to work in a Cathedral eventually!
Clouds: Elevated represents a new model for experimental art that embraces both technological innovation and human yearning for connection. Through suspended fabric and responsive light, ancient architecture and contemporary processing power, these two Leicester artists have created something that elevates - both literally and spiritually - everyone who enters their ethereal domain.
