The future, as imagined by Leeroy New, is fluid, electric, and made of plastic. In Atlantis, he invites us into a speculative landscape where blue bottles grow like roots and float like spores: part warning, part wonder. Shaped by the excess of today, his vision of tomorrow is both a response to environmental urgency and an act of radical reinvention.

New is known for creating large-scale environments, costumes, and performances that blur the boundaries between science fiction, mythology, and social commentary. Drawing from a practice rooted in world-building and myth-making, he constructs speculative futures shaped by local stories and global crises. In Atlantis, that vision takes the form of biomorphic sculptures, floating forms, and blue root-like structures that sprawl across the gallery, enveloping the viewer in a futuristic ecology born from consumer excess.

At the heart of New’s work is a dialogue between the synthetic and the sacred. Inspired by pre-colonial Filipino mythology, the exhibition references Mebuyan, the goddess of death and fertility, whose presence appears in past works such as the Mebuyan Series and Balay Balete. These mythic touchstones offer a counterpoint to the alien aesthetics, grounding his imagined worlds in cultural memory and suggesting a reclamation of identity in the face of environmental collapse.

The works included in the show are illuminated through an ongoing collaboration with Ilaw atbp., a lighting company that offers complete lighting solutions, including customization. This flexibility has allowed them to work closely with artists to create and illuminate one-of-a-kind pieces. Together, they’ve developed the custom-lit sculptures that cast the space in a spectral glow, enhancing the sci-fi atmosphere and drawing the viewer deeper into New’s imagined realm.

Working at the intersection of art, ecology, and speculative fiction, Leeroy New is a Filipino artist whose practice transforms everyday discards into portals to imagined futures. Based in the Philippines, his installations and performances have traveled across Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Through projects like Aliens of Manila, New reimagines urban life as a stage for otherworldly beings, reflecting themes of migration, resilience, and adaptation.

With Atlantis, New invites us to inhabit a world of his making, one where waste becomes myth, ruin becomes ritual, and even the most artificial materials are given new life. It is a vision at once cautionary and creative, rooted in the urgent realities of the present and the imagined potential of the future.