New Dark Aesthetics: The Bats Project
Project supported by:
• Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
• Richmond Arts Service
• The Henry Moore Foundation
• Royal College of Art
Upcoming exhibition:
May 2027, at Orleans House Gallery
Previous exhibitions:
• Orleans House Gallery: Cultural Reforesting exhibition, UK 2025
• Hampton Court Palace: Richmond Biodiversity Action Plan symposium, UK 2025
• Royal College of Art: VOICERs25 Symposium, UK 2025
• Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
• Richmond Arts Service
• The Henry Moore Foundation
• Royal College of Art
Upcoming exhibition:
May 2027, at Orleans House Gallery
Previous exhibitions:
• Orleans House Gallery: Cultural Reforesting exhibition, UK 2025
• Hampton Court Palace: Richmond Biodiversity Action Plan symposium, UK 2025
• Royal College of Art: VOICERs25 Symposium, UK 2025
The Bats Project is part of New Dark Aesthetics, an investigation into how species such as bats have been portrayed in Western popular culture, which in turn shapes our perception and behaviours towards them. Drawing on examples from cinema and videogames, the project questions how these portrayals often privilege horror, fear and eradication while overlooking ecological relevance. The aim is to conceptualise and materialise a new aesthetic genre attuned to the habits of these species. A safe haven for the othered. The monstered.
What does New Dark Aesthetics sound like? Look and feel like? How is it experienced and for whom?
These are some of the questions that Nestor Pestana is exploring through collaborations with ecological experts, workshops with visually impaired audiences and young people. The work will culminate with an intervention at Orleans House Gallery and its woodland in May 2027, kindly supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. It will include an audiovisual experience and a sculpture designed to function as a maternity roost for the local bats, which will be permanently installed in the gallery’s woodland.
This project sits within Orleans House Gallery’s Cultural Reforesting Artist Research Programme, which asks how we can renew our relationship with nature in the context of the ecological crises of our time.
On this page you will find some of the work that has been produced for this project: process, work in progress, prototypes and experiments. This page will be updated as the project develops.
What does New Dark Aesthetics sound like? Look and feel like? How is it experienced and for whom?
These are some of the questions that Nestor Pestana is exploring through collaborations with ecological experts, workshops with visually impaired audiences and young people. The work will culminate with an intervention at Orleans House Gallery and its woodland in May 2027, kindly supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. It will include an audiovisual experience and a sculpture designed to function as a maternity roost for the local bats, which will be permanently installed in the gallery’s woodland.
This project sits within Orleans House Gallery’s Cultural Reforesting Artist Research Programme, which asks how we can renew our relationship with nature in the context of the ecological crises of our time.
On this page you will find some of the work that has been produced for this project: process, work in progress, prototypes and experiments. This page will be updated as the project develops.
1. Bats
Stephanie Holt from the Natural History Museum shares her expertise on bats, their behaviours, ecological importance, and cultural significance, while also discussing their stigmatisation and narrative portrayals. Nestor Pestana explains how this has informed the prototype for a sculpture he created for and with bats in mind, aiming to function as a maternity roost for female pipistrelle bats and their pups.
2. Sequence 162
The images below are from a small scale prototype of Sequence 162, an architectural sculpture designed to function as a maternity roost for pipistrelle bats. One half shows the internal roost chambers, while the other half, in black, shows the exterior. The final sculpture will be four times bigger, and permanently installed in the Orleans House woodland (Twickenham) next year.
The wavy pattern is generated from a 10 second field recording made in the exact location where the final sculpture will be installed. It contains a sequence of 162 bat echolocation calls, mapped across 42 rings of an ellipsoid. The intensities and timings of the calls determine the heights and lengths of the waves.
Details of the outer surface
Details of the inner chambers
Left image: a map produced as part of the first survey in the Orleans House Woodland, showing flying patterns and echolocation frequencies of bats.
Right image: survey team from Natural History Museum and Habitats & Heritage
Dropped pin ︎ showing a possible location for the installation of the sculpture
3. Attunements
Nestor Pestana will work with Sound Artist Dr. David Meckin and visually impaired participants to cocreate an audio piece inspired by bats.
4. Videogame Batwalks & Workshop
Series of workshops where participants will go on a videogame batwalk, to experience first hand how bats are portrayed in a selection of videogames. After this, participants will conceptualise and prototype speculative architectural artefacts to inhabit that videogame landscape, and propose a different kind of encounter between bats and humans.
Top image: Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (videogame), 2025. Kojima Productions. A swarm of Chiral Bats attack the protagonist, Sam, in a rocky ravine north-west of an Animal Shelter in Australia, Episode 4.
Bottom images: First workshop outputs
