> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.catapult-platform.art/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How KiefferWoodtli Turn Tree and Solar Data into Art - URL: https://www.catapult-platform.art/sara-kieffer-lucien-woodtli-artist-focus/ - Published: 2026-10-18T02:56:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-18T02:55:59.000Z - Description: Meet KiefferWoodtli, the Swiss artist duo based in New York, translating live tree and solar data into sound, sculpture and immersive installations. - Author: Dominique Catherina Foertig - Tags: Artist in Focus, Nature & Ecology, Material & Sculpture, Sculpture & Installation, Video & Moving Image, New York ## KiefferWoodtli, the Swiss Artist Duo Translating Nature into Sound and Sculpture A Japanese Pagoda Tree stands in a garden, and beside it a screen shows what the tree is doing.Sap moves, light shifts, a sensor reads both, and the image and the sound change with them. The visuals are hand-painted rather than photographic. That is Arboreal Serenade, first presented at Art Basel 2025 and now part of the permanent collection of the Enea Tree Museum, and it sets the terms for the works that followed. Data arrives as a number **KiefferWoodtli (Sara Kieffer and Lucien Woodtli)** **Based in:** New York City, USA **Medium:** Sculpture, Installation, Sound, Drawing, Performance **Recent Exhibitions:** *AXES*, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026 *Arboreal Severance*, Climate Week NYC, New York, 2025 *Arboreal Serenade*, Art Basel, 2025 **Upcoming:** *AXES:TOTUM*, 23 Rue de Miromesnil, 75008 Paris 20 to 25 October 2026, opening 20 October, 6 to 9pm Hours: 10am to 9pm **Collection:** Enea Tree Museum (*Arboreal Serenade*) **Represented by:** [Alvarez Chida, Mexico City](https://www.alvarezchida.art/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **Website:** [kiefferwoodtli.com](https://kiefferwoodtli.com/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **Instagram:** [@kieffer\_woodtli](https://www.instagram.com/kieffer%5Fwoodtli/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **Photography:** Celeste Oka, Flavio Karrer (portraits) **Image Courtesy:** Courtesy the Artists . ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, portrait of the artist duo. Two people in black stand before a wall of grey solar chart panels.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-artist-portrait.png) KiefferWoodtli, portrait of the artist duo. Photo: Celeste Oka. The Swiss duo **Sara Kieffer and Lucien Woodtli**, based in New York, seem unwilling to leave those signals as numbers. > The data belongs to the tree. What the work asks is what kind of listening belongs to us. In Arboreal Serenade, the visuals and the sound were hand-painted and composed by Kieffer, then tied to the tree's live signals, so that the measured and the intuited run on the same clock. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Severance, New York, 2025. A tall Japanese Pagoda Tree with a wide crown on a lawn.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-arboreal-severance-new-york-2025-closing-pagoda-tree.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Severance, Japanese Pagoda Tree, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, New York, 2025\. Courtesy the artists. Arboreal Severance, commissioned by the Cultural Department of Swissnex for Climate Week New York City 2025, turns the same method against itself. The source is a 101-year-old Japanese Pagoda Tree in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, whose sap flow, photosynthesis and respiration become a breathing soundscape. When visitors enter, the sound fractures. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Serenade, 2025. White sensor housing strapped to a tree trunk with metal bands.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-arboreal-serenade-2025-detail-03.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Serenade, measurement system, detail view, 2025\. Courtesy the artists. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Serenade, 2025. Painted forms on a screen: a black ovoid, red clusters and a green sphere.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-arboreal-serenade-2025-detail-01.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Serenade, detail view, 2025\. Courtesy the artists. In the installation view, speakers climb a white column almost like branches, and black cables run from them across the floor to cracked concrete blocks, soil scattered along the lines. The artists describe the work as a rupture between humans and nature made perceptible, and the cables seem to say it plainly. The connection is physical, and it can be cut. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Severance, New York, 2025. Black speakers on a white column, cables running to concrete blocks.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-arboreal-severance-new-york-2025-installation-01-1.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Severance, installation view, Climate Week New York City, 2025\. Courtesy the artists. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Severance, New York, 2025. Black speakers at different heights on a white column, cables hanging down.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-arboreal-severance-new-york-2025-detail-02.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Severance, detail view, New York, 2025\. Courtesy the artists. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, Arboreal Severance, New York, 2025.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-arboreal-severance-new-york-2025-work-persistance-1of7.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Persistance (1 of 7), Arboreal Severance, detail view, New York, 2025\. Courtesy the artists. Their recent solo exhibition, [AXES at Alvarez Chida in Mexico City](https://www.catapult-platform.art/sara-kieffer-lucien-woodtli-axes-alvarez-chida), moved the data from the tree to the sun. NASA solar data shaped light and sound inside an elliptical installation, and the ellipse, a form held between two foci instead of one centre, became the model for the whole show. Orientation, in this logic, is something negotiated again and again, never settled. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, AXES, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026. Red wire stretched between pins on handmade paper, forming an ellipse of lines.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-axes-alvarez-chida-mexico-city-2026-work-resonance-study-01.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Resonance Study 01, AXES, detail view, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026\. Photo: Celeste Oka. Courtesy the artists and Alvarez Chida. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, AXES, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026. Grey solar chart with fine radial lines and one red thread.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-axes-alvarez-chida-mexico-city-2026-work-heliosplates-12of30.webp) KiefferWoodtli, heliosPlates (12 of 30), AXES, detail view, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026\. Photo: Celeste Oka. Courtesy the artists and Alvarez Chida. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, AXES, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026. Oval wall piece of cream and tan fibre with a small metal hook.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-axes-alvarez-chida-mexico-city-2026-work-index-3of12.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Index (3 of 12), AXES, detail view, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026\. Photo: Celeste Oka. Courtesy the artists and Alvarez Chida. From 20 to 25 October, works from AXES travel to Paris as AXES:TOTUM, the duo's first solo show in the city, presented by Alvarez Chida at 23 Rue de Miromesnil. The artists describe it as a larger system compressed "into a smaller space while retaining its internal relationships, forces, and tensions." ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, AXES, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026. Domed fibre installation with a narrow dark entrance and a stone slab.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-axes-alvarez-chida-mexico-city-2026-work-cave.webp) KiefferWoodtli, Cave, AXES, installation view, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026\. Photo: Celeste Oka. Courtesy the artists and Alvarez Chida. The exhibition brings together sculpture, drawing, sound, installation and performance. A movement performance is scheduled for the opening on 20 October at 7:30 pm, extending the duo's investigation of orientation into the movement of the body. Whether orientation holds once the system is compressed is a question the room will have to answer. ![Artist Profile Feature: KiefferWoodtli, AXES, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026. Domed fibre installation and a dark stone slab in a white hall.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/kiefferwoodtli-axes-alvarez-chida-mexico-city-2026-installation-02.webp) ****KiefferWoodtli,** AXES, installation view, Alvarez Chida, Mexico City, 2026\. Photo: Celeste Oka. Courtesy the artists and Alvarez Chida. --- **About the Artist** **KiefferWoodtli** Swiss conceptual artist duo Sara Kieffer and Lucien Woodtli, based in New York City. Their sculptures and installations translate natural processes into sound, light and touch. [Website](https://kiefferwoodtli.com/?ref=catapult-platform.art) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/kieffer%5Fwoodtli/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **About the Gallery** **Alvarez Chida, Mexico City** Contemporary art gallery in Mexico City and gallery of KiefferWoodtli, presenting AXES:TOTUM in Paris. [Website](https://www.alvarezchida.art/?ref=catapult-platform.art) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/alvarezchida/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **About the Location** **23 Rue de Miromesnil, 75008 Paris** Venue of AXES:TOTUM, 20 to 25 October 2026\. Opening reception 20 October, 6 to 9pm. Hours: 10am to 9pm. **About Catapult Contemporary** This is an Artist in Focus feature published by Catapult Contemporary, an independent editorial platform for contemporary art, based in Vienna. We publish exhibition reviews, artist features, interviews, and critical context, with a focus on emerging and mid-career practices from Europe and beyond. [catapult-platform.art](https://www.catapult-platform.art/) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/catapultcontemporary/?ref=catapult-platform.art) Want to be featured? [Submit your work →](https://www.catapult-platform.art/submit/)