Penny O’Brien

Entangled Messages

All work copyright Penny O’Brien © 2025
Photo credit: Tamas Kovacs

Penny O’Brien's Entangled Messages explores the unseen systems of connection that underpin contemporary life across ecological, digital, and human spheres. Her ceramic sculptures map fragile infrastructures, from mycelial networks beneath forest floors to the undersea fibre-optic cables that carry the majority of global internet data. By entangling organic and technological systems, her work invites reflection on the hidden structures we depend on but rarely perceive. Using extruded and hand-built forms, she draws attention to the tension and fragility between the natural and the engineered. Conceived with their full lifecycle in mind, these sculptures will ultimately return to the landscape as insect habitats.