YOU:MATTER isn’t just another immersive art installation with mood lighting and a synth soundtrack. It’s a mind-expanding collision of science, technology, and storytelling that invites visitors to rethink who they are—and what they’re made of.
Unfolding across the newly transformed National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, YOU:MATTER is the latest boundary-blurring creation by internationally renowned artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF). Commissioned for Bradford 2025, the UK’s latest City of Culture, the installation runs through February 2026—and if you’re even remotely interested in the future of immersive media, this should be on your radar.
Come and See What You’re Made Of
At first glance, YOU:MATTER sounds like the name of a therapy app. But don’t be fooled. This is not about self-care—it's about cosmic awareness. Think: the Big Bang, planetary respiration, atomic bonding, biodiversity, and a selfie station that makes you part of a living forest.
As visitors move through a series of immersive sound and video environments, they experience the interconnectedness of all life—cosmically, biologically, and technologically. You’re invited to follow the lifecycle of a droplet of water, breathe life into a digital forest, and even observe Earth "breathing" through real NASA data visualizations. It’s part museum exhibit, part meditative trip, part science fiction—only it's all rooted in real science.
“The Big Bang wasn’t a one-time event,” says MLF co-founder Robin McNicholas. “It’s still echoing through us—through the atoms in your bones and the air in your lungs. YOU:MATTER is an invitation to experience yourself as part of that grand choreography.”
Making the Invisible Visible
Marshmallow Laser Feast has built its reputation on sensory alchemy—projects that merge data, design, and drama. Past works have taken us inside trees, simulated the sensory world of bats, and visualized the flow of breath. With YOU:MATTER, they take it to a new level of emotional immersion.
“Imagine zooming out from your own cells to see the entire Earth breathing,” says Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Science and Media Museum. “This isn’t just about awe—it’s about understanding. We want people to walk out with a totally new perspective on their place in the universe.”
That sense of perspective shift is baked into the experience. The installation isn’t just interactive; it’s responsive. Real-time environmental data influences the visualizations. Your presence alters the space. It's a gentle reminder: you’re not a passive observer. You're part of the system.
A Cosmic Selfie, but Make It Science
The crown jewel of YOU:MATTER might just be its wildest interactive station—a photo booth that places you inside a sprawling web of biodiversity. It's playful, yes. But it’s also a commentary: in a world of selfies and filters, this one dares to ask what part of the planet you actually reflect.
There’s a reason YOU:MATTER feels so cohesive. MLF works with a wide ecosystem of collaborators—scientists, poets, coders, dancers, data artists, and beyond. The result is that rare thing: an immersive experience that’s as emotionally resonant as it is intellectually rigorous.
It’s also deeply personal. “We want people to feel not just amazed, but implicated,” McNicholas adds. “To understand that they’re not separate from nature—they are nature.”
Bradford’s Big Moment
This installation isn’t happening in a London megamuseum or a trendy Berlin bunker. It’s in Bradford—a city that’s leveraging its new status as the UK City of Culture to showcase a bold, youth-driven cultural renaissance.
“YOU:MATTER is the story of Bradford’s people and their place in the cosmos,” says Shanaz Gulzar, Creative Director of Bradford 2025. “This collaboration with MLF and the museum represents the kind of big, ambitious storytelling we’re bringing to the district this year.”
With a £6 million renovation and a reimagined programming slate, the National Science and Media Museum is setting the bar for what a 21st-century science museum can look like—equal parts digital playground and philosophical laboratory.
A New Standard for Immersive Art?
YOU:MATTER joins a growing canon of next-gen immersive experiences, but it avoids the easy trap of Instagram-bait spectacle. There’s no VR headset to don, no NFT tie-in, no flashy branding. It’s quietly radical—because it invites wonder without demanding attention.
In an era dominated by AI-generated noise and doomscrolling fatigue, YOU:MATTER offers something rare: time to breathe, reflect, and reconnect. It’s strange. It’s profound. It’s the kind of experience that stays with you—not in your camera roll, but in your gut.
The Universe Is in Bradford
YOU:MATTER isn’t about discovering something new—it’s about seeing what’s always been there, through different eyes. And for the next eleven months, that view starts in Bradford.
So if you're planning to visit the UK this year, skip the queues at the big-name galleries. Instead, go see what you're made of.
Because yes—YOU matter. But maybe not in the way you thought.
National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, UK
3 April 2025 – 22 February 2026
scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/whats-on/you-matter
marshmallowlaserfeast.com
