Contact: henrydriver@hotmail.co.uk

My aim is to create projects which connect us to our environment, as well as combat the climate crisis by presenting achievable responses to this. Coming from a farming family, I have witnessed the effects of climate change, as they ravage harvests. It was from experiencing this, that in 2019, I decided to solely focus on the environment.

I have shown across the world in Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, India, Japan, Portugal, South Korea, USA, Turkey and Taiwan. My videos have been broadcast on TV in over 40 countries. While in the UK, I have shown at galleries such as Tate Liverpool, Tate Britain, Whitechapel & Barbican.

I was commissioned to create ‘Secrets of Soil’ for BBC Arts and Arts Council England. Secrets of Soil is an interactive journey that explores the hidden world of soil and its role in combating climate change. The project was supported by and inspired by research at the John Innes Centre and my family’s regenerative agricultural practises.

Over 95,000 have downloaded Secrets of Soil since its June 2021 release, while its exhibited audience reach for every festival/gallery/conference is over 100,000, and its social media reach is 4.3 million. The project has been shown across the world at art galleries, games and film festivals, farming & academic conferences, scientific institutions, hospitals and schools. Receiving praise from critics such as EDGE Magazine (2021) who described it as… “hypnotic pleasure…Driver turns this subterranean odyssey into something truly fantastical, with the sort of palette you’d normally associate with games from Mizuguchi and Minter.” Lewis Gordon (2021), a leading critic on games and the environment for numerous major publications and websites said on Vice Waypoint “A spectacular underground cosmos. It’s everything I wish my educational software at school could have been.”.

Selected festivals, exhibitions, conference and awards for Secrets of Soil EGX Leftfield Collection (London), Game on for Nature (Online), International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (Tallinn), Prague Science Film Festival, LIKELIKE Gallery (Pittsburgh), Play Make Learn (Maddison), GEE Learning Game Award Finalist 22, Das Das (Istanbul), & shortlisted for the Sustainability First Art Prize 21.

In 2023 I had 3 artworks exhibited in the major 7 month exhibition on soil and climate change at the Sainsbury Centre. I also recieved Arts Council project funding to create WaterPortals an interactive installation exploring water, microbes and climate change, the piece has been touring since including solo shows at Level Centre and Gainsborough House, alongside numerous events such as the Suffolk Show and Youth Climate Conference. In 2019 I was commissioned by Essex County Council to create a semi-permanent artwork for Cressing Temple Barns, during a three month residency, that explored arable agriculture’s power to combat climate change. Following this I created a video for Science Gallery India which explore microbial symbiosis. Both of these projects I worked with researchers from the John Innes Centre.

In 2014, I was selected by Turner Prize winner Mark Leckey to exhibit at Tate Liverpool for took weeks. I was shortlisted and exhibited for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016. My work was published in the XL Catlin Guide 2016 “...this guide brings together art’s next big names” (Dazed & Confused). In May 2017, I was selected for alt.barbican, a major new accelerator for innovative artists working at the intersection of art and technology in partnership with The Trampery, MUTEK, the British Council, and the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio. I was chosen as one of the top 15 artists aged under 35 in the UK, for the Kleinwort Hambros Art Prize 2019.

Key commissions include creating public video commissions for a 93m screen in Taipei and a 30m display in Yokohama. The creation of VR and holographic artworks for the NNAB (2018), and an interactive video installations for e-Luminate Festival (2017). I created a video installation for BRITs (2021) nominee AJ Tracey & Mumdance, which was commissioned by Red Bull Music Studios, London. Barbara Dougan and I were commissioned by Collusion to create an interactive artwork using A.I facial tracking and live CGI for their 2019 showcase exhibition.

Website designed by Henry Driver
© Henry Driver 2018