The Earths Within Us
A site-sensitive performance
November 2–28, 2026
London WC1A 2TH
UK
“What has been done to the rivers of the Earth—regulated, buried, redirected, extracted—has also been done to the self, in what we learn not to feel.” —Lundahl & Seitl
Swedenborg House is pleased to announce The Earths Within Us (2026) by Swedish artist duo Lundahl & Seitl, a limited run of site-sensitive embodied performances at the historic home of the Swedenborg Society throughout November. Configuring Swedenborg House as an architectonic body with organs, visitors wearing wireless headphones and sightless goggles will—for twenty minutes—be led by unseen hands through a soundscape of water, stone and voice, whilst around them choral drones echo the rivers lost beneath London. The new commission is the artists’ first major presentation in the UK since the critically acclaimed Symphony of a Missing Room at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2014.
Extending from Lundahl & Seitl's perennial work River Biographies, in which participants embodied the waters of the Huangpu, Indus and Ruhr rivers and the Strait of Bosphorus, The Earths Within Us finds affinity with the concept of correspondences between material and spiritual worlds developed by eighteenth-century Swedish scientist, philosopher and visionary, Emanuel Swedenborg. The artists state: “What has been done to the rivers of the Earth—regulated, buried, redirected, extracted—has also been done to the self, in what we learn not to feel. The Earths Within Us moves in two currents, one outer and one inner. Every step taken inside Swedenborg House, every material threshold crossed, corresponds with the participant’s inner architecture.”
The Earths Within Us also presents Words Dissolved By Tears (2026), Lundahl & Seitl’s first sculptural work, and the first in an ongoing series of glass discs, each rendered with an invisible micro-relief of crystallised water from seas, rivers, springs and tears. As light passes through the glass, the crystallised residue bends it into a caustic, or pattern of refracted light on the wall. The work links to Swedenborg's own microscopic studies of salt, from which he developed a pioneering theory of geometric crystal formation that anticipated modern crystallography by nearly two centuries. Lundahl & Seitl say, “Inspired by Swedenborg House, the glass disc holds a single tear, shed in this time of war, a crystallised form as the shape of a hidden motion.” Words Dissolved By Tears can only be seen when experiencing The Earths Within Us.
A new book accompanies The Earths Within Us, edited by Devin Zuber. A framing essay by Zuber situates the artists within a visionary tradition and reads their work alongside Swedenborg’s embodied mysticism. The book includes contributions from and an interview with Lundahl & Seitl and is published by Swedenborg House for the Swedenborg Archive Series.
The Earths Within Us is a commission within Books of Salt, an ongoing project by Lundahl & Seitl related to River Biographies. It is commissioned by Swedenborg House with support from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee Kulturbryggan. Caustic lens consulting, engineering and fabrication for Words Dissolved by Tears by Rayform. Choral singing by NYX, a collective of experimental vocalists and electronic artists, specially created for River Biographies. The book launch and panel discussion are supported by the Embassy of Sweden. Lundahl & Seitl are supported by the Swedish Arts Council and IASPIS.
Opening hours: 12–5pm on the following days: November 4, 6, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 21, 25, 27, 28. Duration: 25 minutes. Admission: 5 GBP admin fee. Bookings: swedenborg.org.uk/events / theearthswithinus.eventbrite.co.uk
