Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits. Solarceptors, VR installation, 2025. Developed within the artistic research project Plants-Intelligence (SNSF, 2022–2025). Courtesy of the artists.

In collaboration with the 75th International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg (IFFMH), the exhibition "Solarceptors" by artists Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits opens on Wednesday, 2 September, at 7 pm in the STUDIO at Kunsthalle Mannheim, with an accompanying artist talk.

IFFMH is one of the oldest film festivals in the world and the second-oldest in Germany after the Berlinale — since its founding in 1952, the festival has been an important international platform for discovering new directing talent, having showcased the early work of directors such as François Truffaut, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders, among others.

This year, the International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg marks its 75th edition with an extensive cultural programme themed "Imagine Futures!". The exhibition "Solarceptors" at Kunsthalle Mannheim is part of this programme and takes up the festival's motto, inviting visitors to leave behind familiar ways of thinking and to understand the future not as a technological vision, but as a new way of looking at the world.

Based on 3D scans of real plants and ecological data, "Solarceptors" by Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits offers a shift in perspective: in the STUDIO, visitors can experience the world from the perspective of plants. Inspired by Charles Darwin's description of the "abominable mystery" of the origin of flowering plants, the immersive artwork envisions flowers as solar receptors — living organisms shaped by light that grow and flourish by absorbing solar energy. Through light, flowers perceive their surroundings, carry out photosynthesis, and continuously adapt to their environment — revealing their diversity, until they themselves become luminous bodies of light.

Both institutions consider the exhibition "Solarceptors" a particularly significant example of their partnership:

"With our section Facing New Challenges, we turn our attention to film and video art beyond the classic cinema screen. "Solarceptors" is an impressively immersive work that engages in a fascinating way with plants' response to light. Light is the essence of cinema — all the more reason we are delighted to present this installation together with Kunsthalle Mannheim as part of our anniversary programme "Imagine Futures!". The Kunsthalle is a highly valued partner for us, and this joint project is an outstanding example of how moving image can be experienced in different contexts, immersing us in previously unseen worlds." — Dr. Sascha Keilholz, Director of IFFMH

"Our long-standing cooperation with the International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg represents an exciting exchange between the arts and repeatedly makes extraordinary projects possible that open up new perspectives. "Solarceptors" is an impressive example of this: the work combines scientific questions with artistic imagination and invites us, for a moment, to see the world through different eyes — to experience it from the perspective of plants. In doing so, it creates a sensory approach to the complex relationships between humans, nature, and technology, and shows how art can expand our perception and inspire new ways of thinking." — Luisa Heese, Acting Director of Kunsthalle Mannheim

Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits work at the intersection of art, science, and immersive media. Their practice centres on ecological systems, environmental data, and the relationship between technology and nature. The artists' works engage with plant intelligence, atmospheric processes, microbial ecology, and planetary sensing. From scientific data, they develop immersive installations and XR environments that make complex relationships experienceable as spatial audiovisual experiences. Their work is exhibited internationally and has been awarded the PRIX Ars Electronica, among others, and nominated for the Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year in Art and Science. Both teach and conduct research at renowned institutions: Rasa Smite at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Raitis Smits as Professor at the Art Academy of Latvia. Together they founded the RIXC Center for New Media Culture in Riga, where they curate international festivals and publish the Acoustic Space / Renewable Futures series.

The exhibition will be on view from 3 September to 22 November 2026 in the STUDIO exhibition hall at Kunsthalle Mannheim, in Mannheim, Germany.

Curator: Julia Katharina Thiemann
Curatorial Assistant: Alessia Tardivo

"Solarceptors" is one of five exhibitions by Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits this year that form a dialogue around the theme of climate imagination, leading up to the international RIXC Art and Science Festival in Riga.

The artwork "Solarceptors" was developed within the research project "Plants Intelligence. Learning Like a Plant" (2022–2025), funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and carried out at the Institute for Art, Gender and Nature at FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel. Project lead — Yvonne Volkart; artistic research — Rasa Smite; scientific partners — FiBL (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, Switzerland) and Katja Tielbörger (University of Tübingen).

VR Programming: Kristaps Biters
Music/Sound: Lauris Smits
Co-producer: RIXC Center for New Media Culture

Further information: https://kuma.art/en