Quickening: Aesthetic Encounters and the Ecological Imagination

Hatton Gallery’s Embodied Art & Technology Program presents Quickening: Aesthetic Encounters and the Ecological Imagination, an immersive video exhibition featuring three leading artists create powerful perceptual environments that awaken ecological consciousness.

Sofia Crespo, Timur Si-Qin, and Erin Espelie craft distinct visual worlds through custom-trained machine learning, ultra-high-definition 3D simulation, and Super 8mm film, drawing viewers into intimate and heightened encounters with planetary-scale biodiversity. Presented within a state-of-the-art immersive projection environment, Quickening renders these works in embodied, emotive form and affirms the aesthetic experience as a vital force in deepening our ecological imagination.

Now in its second year, the Embodied Art & Technology Program transforms the gallery into a site of embodied experience, emotional resonance, and community exchange around urgent contemporary questions. The program launched in Spring 2025 with the virtual reality exhibition The Hangman at Home.

Led by Xinran Yuan, Senior Director of Visual Arts Programming and Engagment, the Embodied Art & Technology Program at Hatton Gallery is generously supported by Colorado State University’s University Technology Fee Advisory Board (UTFAB) and the City of Fort Collins’ Fort Fund Grant Program, and developed in partnership with the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance and the College of Liberal Arts’ Future of Creativity initiative.

The Quickening exhibition is realized in collaboration with Michael Highsmith, Technical Director; Theo Kuehn (’27), Lead Projection Designer and Technologist; and Shane Slattery-Quintanilla, Co-Curator.

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Host or Publisher CSU Department of Art and Art History