As We Lay Dying is an immersive arts and theatre festival taking place at Hoxton Hall in London on 26–27 September 2026. Its two days are organised as an Exhibition Chapter and a Theatre Chapter: first, encounters across three distinctive rooms; then, a gathering in the main auditorium for shared watching and listening. Objects, images, sound and bodies offer different ways of meeting the work.
Chapter One: three rooms, multiple encounters
The Exhibition Chapter runs from 13:00 to 19:00 on 26 September. May Scott Studio, Palmer Room and Reading Room offer different relationships between artistic media and space, rather than repeating the same exhibition experience in three settings.
In May Scott Studio, (Re)turning to the Green Room combines low-frequency sound, shifting light and sculptural forms in a cave-like installation: an unfamiliar landscape shaped by human and non-human life. Palmer Room brings together costume, installation and photography as another route into encounters with bodies, objects and images. Reading Room accommodates installation, painting, video, sound, sculpture, workshops, VR performance, artist talks and live performance, bringing looking and participation into conversation.
Chapter Two: one stage, many voices
At 14:00 on 27 September, the Theatre Chapter begins in Hoxton Hall’s Main Hall. Film, theatre, live performance and sound art meet within one auditorium. The rhythm shifts from closer encounters across separate rooms to time experienced together by an audience.
On the first day, the work unfolds through objects, images, sound and participation across different spaces. On the second, live bodies, moving image and sound gather within a shared performance space. Placed alongside one another, the two chapters bring the intimacy of smaller rooms into dialogue with the resonance of collective watching and listening.
Sound, image, bodies and imagined worlds
Cross-disciplinary working is also present in the creative team’s individual practices. Curator and producer Juice works across sound, theatre, painting, sculpture, film and performance, creating immersive sonic worlds concerned with structure and chaos, time, perception and history. In this kind of practice, sound can be a material for organising space and experience, rather than simply an accompaniment to another medium.
Other members of the team approach reality and perception from different directions. Yuxing Chen explores memory, digital archives and the relationship between the virtual and the real. Alex Xiaonan Guo’s curatorial research takes “alternative reality” as a starting point for examining entanglements between technology and human society. Through photography, moving image, installation and participation, Heallen Pan considers how images, narratives, beliefs and embodied experience shape reality. These are distinct creative concerns within the team, rather than a single artistic language imposed on every work.
Making the festival, on and off stage
The collaboration extends across music, visual practice, lighting, sound, stage technology and production. Santi Lowe is Music Director; Ben Thorn and Yiqi Kong are Art Directors. Yuqing Wang designs lighting, Antian Bi designs sound, and Fraser Scowen and Ziyue Wang are Stage Managers and Technical Managers. As Production Manager and Associate Producer, Qi Wang supports planning, artist liaison, scheduling and delivery. Yimeng Zhang works on marketing, while Haiyun Zheng is Programming Coordinator.
Hoxton Hall as part of the encounter
The festival’s choice of Hoxton Hall reflects its history, distinctive architecture and range of spaces. Moving between the main auditorium and quieter rooms allows spectacle and closeness to coexist, connecting memory, performance and shared experience across the two days.
Two days, two ways of watching: one chapter unfolds across three rooms, while the other gathers in a single hall. As We Lay Dying invites audiences to move from looking towards listening, and from images towards bodies and materials, encountering art at different scales.