Jesse Vega: Reformat your nature

Reformat your nature practices cultural wellness through virtual oases: Inspired by the transformative history of the Vietnamese dragon, the 3D series reimagines its traditional identity, projecting its orbital presence over an awakening garden.

Responding to global isolation and racial climate inflected on Asian consciousness, the animation transports viewers to a tranquil micro-world, considering the screen as a mode of re-belonging. The spatial departure from urban structures reifies Buddhist ideologies on mindfulness, immersing in the environment’s open ambiance.

Nature’s interconnectivity with rebirth and spirituality is formatted into the virtual oasis, neutral violet plants and geology materialising under pink skies. With soft calm sounds harmonising in the backdrop, the landscape offers meditative introspection by the glass pagoda.

In providing cultural agency towards Asian communities through digital constructs meld by past and present, the garden invites momentary comfort and growth. The garden is open to access, and made for wellness.

Reformat your nature prints are available through 4A’s shop.

Jesse Vega is a contemporary visual artist based in Sydney. Working across photography, video, sound and 3D animation, his visual practice treads between commercial culture, hybrid identities, and digital ecosystems. Exploring post-internet worlds through 3D technologies, Vega taps into transformative fantasies and its agency towards cultural histories. His debut 3D series “Mourning the burned house” speculates the underbelly of post-natural landscapes, creating conscious hybrid formations implicated by material de- sire. Undertaking a Bachelor of Design in Photography from UTS, Vega has locally exhibited at Goodspace Gallery, Airspace Projects and Babekuhl Gallery.

Reformat your nature is commissioned by 4A and curated by the Curatorial Assistant for 2021, Marco Rinaldi, as part of 4A’s Digital Curatorship. The 4A Curatorial Assistant Program is supported by the Sally Breen Family Foundation.