Queen Mary researchers featured in international exhibition exploring AI and the paradox of agency
Work by the Planetary Portals collective, co-founded by two Queen Mary University of London academics, will feature in a major international exhibition examining the relationship between artificial intelligence, technology and human agency.
Planetary Portals, Pastoral Landscape, 2025. Bildmuseet
The exhibition, 'AI and the Paradox of Agency' ,opens on 13 March 2026 at Bildmuseet.
The show includes work by Planetary Portals, a research collective co-founded by Kathryn Yusoff, Professor of Inhuman Geography, and Kerry Holden, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, both based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at Queen Mary University of London.
The collective also includes Casper Laing-Ebbensgaard from the University of East Anglia and British-Nigerian artist Michael Salu.
The exhibition will feature elements of their installation 'I am in your dreams, but you are not in mine', which was first presented at The Photographers’ Gallery in 2025.
The installation explores how artificial intelligence systems interpret historical archives. Drawing on colonial photographic collections, the work examines the ways machine learning technologies can reproduce existing inequalities embedded in historical datasets.
Dr Kerry Holden and Professor Kathryn Yusoff said:
“Our installation explores how artificial intelligence systems interpret historical archives and the colonial histories embedded within them. By revisiting these images through artistic and critical practice, we want to ask what kinds of power structures are reproduced when machine learning technologies are trained on the past.”
AI and the Paradox of Agency brings together 25 artists from around the world whose work explores the growing influence of artificial intelligence in everyday life.
Through installations, film, and digital artworks, the exhibition examines the ethical, political and environmental implications of artificial intelligence and asks a central question: who holds power and agency when human decision-making increasingly intersects with automated systems?
Running until January 2027, the exhibition presents new perspectives on the complex relationship between technology, society and the environment.
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