Why is light such a constant element in your installations? What draws you to it as a material or language?

The presence or absence of light determines the atmosphere in a space. It sets the tone and atmosphere in ways that are often subtle but deeply impactful. For us, light is much more than just illumination — it’s a medium we use to communicate on a sensory level; it speaks directly to the body and emotions. That’s why it plays such an important role in our work. It allows us to create room-filling experiences that people don’t just see, but truly feel.

You’ve mentioned that your work tries to communicate a positive vision of the future. Is that somehow linked to energy consumption, and how does that idea feed into your practice?

Our vision isn’t directly about energy consumption, even though we recognise it as one of the most urgent issues of our time. What we focus on is a more utopian idea of a future where technology and nature can exist in balance. There’s a dominant narrative that technology will eventually destroy the natural world, but we often overlook the incredible progress we’ve made through it. In our work, we try to bridge these two forces — rather than seeing them as opposites, we ask how technology can learn from nature, and how we might use it to build a future where humans live in harmony with their environment. This vision is best represented in Fragile Future, Lonneke’s graduation project and the first artwork that sums up what DRIFT stands for. The sculpture consists of three-dimensional bronze electrical circuits connected to light-emitting dandelions. The sculpture can go on endlessly, as new circuits can always be added. It contains real dandelion seeds that were picked by hand and glued, seed by seed, to LED lights. Fragile Future brings together two opposing evolutions — nature and technology — to evoke a utopian vision of the future where the two coexist.

How do you navigate between large-scale installations and exhibitions, more intimate settings like private collections, and shared spaces like co-living environments? What role does space play in how your work is experienced?

Space plays an essential role in how our work is experienced — it contextualises the artworks and influences how they are perceived. Over the years, we have had the honor to present our works in different institutions around the world, and each time, what we enjoy the most is figuring out how the artwork would fit into the space. When put in a museum, the work becomes the focal point; it is a DRIFT artwork, carrying our vision and putting that vision in dialogue with the architecture. When put into a more intimate context, the work becomes part of the owner’s curated collection, part of their story rather than ours.