Ascendance
Date
Summer + Autumn 2026
Photo Credits
Berwick Parade by Jenifer
Charlton, Keppels Column
by Matthew Rosier & Luton
Henge by Roo Lewis
Award-winning artist Matthew Rosier will work with leading socially engaged public art organisation, UP Projects, to create a highly ambitious participatory artwork using large-scale projection, newly recorded oral histories woven with nature recordings within an original music score, and community co-creation to explore Barnet’s role as a place of arrival and a home for both humans and the non human. The final installation will create a visual spectacle that is accessible and grounded in the lived experiences of Barnet’s communities.
Rosier is known for creating large-scale public artworks developed through close collaboration with the communities and places they inhabit, working across film, sound, projection, and performance. This new artistic commission, Ascendance, will bring this approach to Barnet, translating the lived experiences of movement, migration, and belonging into a powerful public art installation.
Ascendance will be unveiled in November 2026, during a free multi-day arts and culture festival forming the celebratory finale of the Light + Flight programme.
"As an artist drawn to how places and people came to be, it’s so exciting to be creating an artwork that will make this visible. Barnet to me represents what I love about my home city: the multitudes of stories, journeys and landscapes that somehow hold each other together. This is what we will come together to celebrate in Ascendance.”
(Matthew Rosier)
About the Artist
Matthew Rosier is a London-based artist who makes public artworks by spending time in places and working closely with the people who live there. His projects often take place in everyday public spaces, using film, sound, projection, performance, and spatial design to create shared moments and temporary public spaces.
While some projects are large in scale, they remain grounded in everyday life and local connection. Rather than presenting a single story or message, Rosier’s work allows moments, voices, and experiences to sit alongside one another, without being shaped into a neat conclusion. His background in architecture continues to inform how he thinks about public space, time, and long-term collaboration.
Rosier’s work has been installed in public spaces in London, Paris, Austin, and Tokyo, and commissioned by local authorities, as well as institutions such as Somerset House, Historic Royal Palaces, the National Landscapes Association, British Council Japan, and the UK Space Agency.
His work has been presented at the Design Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, nominated for the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year, and awarded the Active Public Space Award, the London Contemporary Art Prize Public Vote Award, and the Museum + Heritage Innovation Award. His projects have also been featured on BBC and ITV.
About UP Projects
UP Projects is the UK’s leading public art organisation specialising in socially engaged public art commissioning. They bring world class artists out of the gallery and into public spaces to create new work with communities across the UK and beyond. Their work is always responsive to context often activating unexpected corners of the public realm.
They initiate projects that respond to some of the most pressing issues of our time as well as work with partners to create extraordinary, ambitious and risk-taking work that communities can shape, actively participate in and relate to.
Light + Flight is presented by Art in Barnet. It is supported by a Cultural Impact Award, part of the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture programme. It is made possible with additional support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England.