Krista Kim

Regenesis 2021 Metaverse installation/ XR study by krista kim In collaboration with Alex Dang

Regenesis envisions the city as a sanctuary — a luminous digital environment in which urban space is reimagined as an instrument of human wellbeing. Created in collaboration with Alex Dang, the work is a futuristic study of Mott Haven, a public housing project in the South Bronx, New York, in which the built environment is transformed into immersive works of art through Zen meditative design and gradient light. The city is regenerated, stripped of its noise and fragmentation, and reconstituted as a space that breathes.

The work anticipates a near future made possible by advances in wearable technology — a world in which digital overlays of art are visible on real-life architecture, augmenting the physical world in real time. Using Blender software, Kim constructs a digital twin of the housing complex in which architecture is no longer defined by concrete and utility, but by fluidity, color, and stillness. As wearable XR devices become sufficiently advanced, experiences like Regenesis will move from the screen into the street — seamlessly layering meditative, healing environments onto the cities we inhabit every day.

The gradient — Kim's signature visual language — serves here as both aesthetic and argument. The seamless flow of color across form is a symbol of harmony between the human and the technological, proposing that mental wellness and urban beauty are not luxuries, but necessities that technology can deliver to all communities, including those historically underserved by design and public investment.

First exhibited at Ipotesi Metaverso at Palazzo Cipolla, Rome (April–July 2023), the work was experienced by visitors through VR headsets — an early portal into the augmented urban future the work envisions. Presented alongside works by Refik Anadol, Pak, Mario Klingemann, and other pioneers of digital art, Regenesis was part of one of the first major international exhibitions to interrogate the existential and cultural dimensions of the metaverse. The work is documented in the exhibition catalog published by Drago Publisher.