Shadowscapes (Emotional Dumping Ground), 2025, is part of Heaney’s solo show Shadowscapes: Heaney, JMW Turner and Quantum at Orleans House Gallery  9 Oct 2025 – 1 Mar 2026, featuring three oil paintings by JMW Turner, which Heaney interprets as contemporary psychological landscapes.

Drawing on CG Jung’s concept of shadow – the parts of us we deem unacceptable and unconsciously suppress – and quantum physics – the invisible fluidity at the microscopic heart of all matter, Heaney invites the audiences to think about the invisible forces that shape our world.

In Shadowscapes (Emotional Dumping Ground) audiences encounter, interact with and appear in a layered quantum multiverse filled with various emotional landscapes where nature symbolizes our unruly emotions.

Thinking about how we project or ‘dump’ our unprocessed emotions others as well as nature, the work also explores the shadow dynamics in Heaney’s own family.

Shadowscapes (Emotional Dumping Ground) takes the audience on a non-linear journey through layers of moving imagery – dark thorny landscapes, dimly lit caverns, slimy cauldrons and fleshy fields – brought together into various relations in real-time using quantum computing. The imagery is inspired by Heaney’s engagement with the Turner paintings. As part of the process, drawing, painting, writing, coding and movement practice enabled her to uncover their and her hidden depths.

The work interacts with the audience through a webcam and AI facial recognition. When people move in front of the webcam, the footage almost stops, the score becomes quieter and a poetic spoken narrative plays. The audience also faintly sees a digital capture of themselves within the work amongst the layers.  The work returns to “normal” and loops at its regular pace when no one is present. 

Combined with an atmospheric and sometimes pulsating soundscape, Shadowscapes (Emotional Dumping Ground) invites audiences to feel an emotional resonance within themselves and with nature.