- Linda Hollier
Updated: 4 days ago
Recently, I have begun exploring the use of AI as a creative assistant in the development of 3D models for augmented reality. This feels like a natural extension of my iPhoneart practice - one that allows familiar themes of presence, perception, and embodiment to move into new spatial territory. By engaging with AI tools, I am opening my work to fresh forms of collaboration and experimentation, translating intuitive image-making into sculptural, immersive experiences that can exist within the viewer’s own environment.
Inspired by the Inuit story of Sedna, Mother of the Sea, the above work whispers a simple truth: when we honour the ocean, the ocean can continue to nourish life.
In Sedna’s Echo, photographed above on the prairies in Alberta, Canada, I continue to explore how the digital can become a vessel for presence and reflection. The figure, calm and poised, holding a staff as a marine creature rests at her feet, embodies both strength and guardianship. She stands as a symbol of our relationship with the living ocean and of the balance between human awareness and the natural world.
Presented in augmented reality, Sedna’s Echo exists only when brought into being by the viewer. Appearing within their own surroundings, she transforms ordinary space into a moment of quiet encounter. This act of placement echoes my ongoing interest in thresholds - between the physical and the virtual, the visible and the invisible - and affirms my belief that art can awaken a deeper sense of connection wherever it appears.
Sedna’s Echo embodies the coexistence of movement and stillness, presence and flux. The figure stands grounded and composed, holding her staff as a marine animal rests calmly at her feet. This stillness is intentional - it acts as an anchor, a moment of pause that invites contemplation rather than urgency.
At the same time, movement is implied rather than enacted. The ocean lives in suggestion: in the symbolism of the figure, in the animal presence, and in the medium of augmented reality itself. Though the body remains still, the surrounding digital space is in constant flux - light shifts, environments change, and the work is re-situated each time a viewer encounters it in a new location.
Similarly, presence and flux operate simultaneously. Sedna’s Echo is fully present only in the moment it is summoned into a viewer’s physical space through AR. Yet its context is never fixed; it adapts to each environment, each perspective, each act of witnessing. In this way, the work reflects a core belief in my practice: that stillness does not negate movement, and presence does not resist change. Instead, they coexist as states of heightened awareness.
Sedna’s Echo will be presented at Miami Art Week as part of Code Blue, an exhibition curated by Balanced Forces that brings artists together around themes of ocean awareness and environmental responsibility. The project also marks my first participation in a collective NFT drop, another unfamiliar yet compelling framework through which the work can live and circulate. Entering these spaces feels aligned with my interest in expansion and exchange, allowing the work to move beyond traditional formats while remaining rooted in contemplation, care, and connection.
The exhibition will take place on Miami Beach at the Miami South Beach Boardwalk in front of the Sagamore Hotel from December 4th-6th, 2025.