Sky Cities: Futures in Flux
A solo exhibition by Elgin Rust
Front Gallery: 15.10.26 - 26.11.26
In 2018, during my travels in Ghana, I became captivated by architecture in a state of flux: buildings under construction, nearing completion, or showing signs of decay. This convergence of past, present and future prompted me to ask: what will the spaces we inhabit look like in 2065? As climate change increasingly threatens the places we inhabit, I began imagining what architecture might become: Sky Cities.
Drawing on my archive of architectural photographs, I experimented with transforming buildings into floating structures and spacecraft. Using digital software, I created fictional floating architecture as digital negatives, deliberately retaining flaws and glitches as markers of human experience and vulnerability.
My Sky Cities are rooted in the architectural realities I encountered in Ghana and through my travels through Cairo, Dubai and Cape Town.
I began using cyanotype to translate these digital images into physical form. Developed in 1842 by Sir John F. W. Herschel, cyanotype later became closely associated with architectural blueprints.
The process is entirely hands-on: coating paper or fabric with light-sensitive chemistry, exposing it to sunlight, and washing it by hand. The image emerges slowly through physical labour, natural light and time. This tactile process creates a deliberate tension with the digital origins of the imagery, grounding screen-born architecture in the rhythms of the sun and the hand.
The cyanotype process gives the prints a temporal dimension, positioning them between past, present and future. The digitally generated skyscapes propel the images toward an imagined future, while the cyanotype draws them back into history. These light-sensitive works become bridges between memory and speculation, their material vulnerability mirroring the unstable futures they depict.
Ultimately, Sky Cities asks us to look at the future through the architecture of the present, the world we know, the materials we discard, the environments we alter, and the futures we choose to imagine.
Alongside Sky Cities, the independent audio artwork [Umoya], a recording of a live performance, is presented in dialogue with the visual work. While resonating conceptually within the same space, the works remain autonomous, inviting separate yet interconnected readings.
[Umoya] (2026)
Umoya, “Breath”, “Spirit”, is a live performance recorded on 11 July at the Sufi Temple in Cape Town, South Africa.
Together, PURE, Denise and Sage Botanicas weave texture, resonance and atmosphere into an immersive sonic journey between the earthly and the unseen. In a world shaped by division, displacement and unfolding events, Umoyacreates a space for rest, listening and reflection, an invitation to reconnect with our shared humanity beyond the noise.
Proudly presented by:
