Prada mode london hosts elmgreen & dragset’s installation
Elmgreen & Dragset craft hyperrealistic cinemagoer sculptures in an immersive cinema installation for Prada Mode London. Titled The Audience, the project is at Town Hall in King’s Cross, London, from October 17th to 19th, 2025, coinciding with Frieze London. The temporary installation is part of Prada Mode, which is an ongoing global series of the brand focusing on site-specific events that combine art, design, and social experience. It has traveled to Osaka across a SANAA-designed pavilion as well as Tokyo with site-specific artworks curated by Kazuyo Sejima. Even Theaster Gates has created sonic and spatial immersion at Prada Mode in Abu Dhabi as well as in London, while the one in LA was transformed by Carsten Höller into the dubbed Prada Double Club carnival wonderland.
The continuing theme is always interaction between the space, sculptures, and the viewers. In Prada Mode London, artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset underline the act of watching and being watched, as their immersive installation transforms the restored Town Hall building into a working cinema. Inside, visitors enter a space designed to function both as an exhibition and as a performance site, where the central features include the hyperrealistic cinemagoers made of silicone, a series of plush seats reminiscent of the ones found in Milan’s Fondazione Prada, and a looping blurry film that discusses the age of image overload, hyperconnectivity, and attention deficit.
all images courtesy of Elmgreen & Dragset and Prada
Hyperrealistic sculptures explore theme of hyperconnectivity
The heart of The Audience is the short, intentionally blurred film being played in the immersive cinema installation, created still by Elmgreen & Dragset. The film plays on a continuous loop, repeating a scene in which a painter and a writer talk about their creative work while inside their flat. It doesn’t have a clear resolution or ending but runs repeatedly, creating a sense of continuous observation. In the cinema space co-designed with the brand, five life-sized hyperrealistic sculptures occupy the seats, modeled to resemble ordinary audience members. Each one is positioned differently – some appear attentive, others distracted – showing different ways people watch or lose focus during a film. These sculptures are immobile, forming part of the installation’s reflection on spectatorship.
The installation extends outside the cinema hall with another sculptural work titled The Conversation. This piece features a female figure seated at a café table in the lobby, steeped in a video call with one of the film’s characters. It feels like the cinema scene and this sculpture create a loop between real and fictional space, with the visitors watching the sculptures and them watching the living people in return with their frozen states and stares, blurring the distinction between audience and subject. For Prada Mode London, the artists Elmgreen & Dragset explore how people interact with images in a world of continuous media exposure and hyperconnectivity.
Elmgreen & Dragset craft hyperrealistic cinemagoer sculptures for Prada Mode London
Restoring Town Hall in King’s Cross as temporary cinema
The Town Hall in King’s Cross was restored and repurposed for Elmgreen & Dragset’s installation with Prada Mode London. The brand’s team collaborated with the artists to adapt the interior into a functioning cinema installation, with the layout including a projection area, fixed seating for both sculptures and visitors, and controlled lighting to support the film projection. Materials were selected for both functionality and preservation of the building, such as temporary walls and sound insulation panels that maintain acoustic balance. The hyperrealistic cinemagoer sculptures were made using silicone, resin, fiberglass, and human hair to reproduce realistic surfaces and textures.
In addition to the main installation, Prada Mode London features a series of events exploring the idea of spectatorship. The schedule includes artist talks, discussions, film screenings, performances, and DJ sets, and these activities examine how audiences engage with visual culture and digital media. The temporary installation by Elmgreen & Dragset at Prada Mode London runs from October 15th to 19th, 2025, with the first two days of the event functioning as a private members club. During this period, invited guests can preview the installation and attend smaller discussions in a more controlled environment. From October 17th to 19th, the venue opens to the public, allowing wider access to the installation and associated programming.
titled The Audience, the project is at Town Hall in King’s Cross, London
visitors enter a space designed to function both as an exhibition and as a performance site
some hyperrealistic sculptures appear attentive, while others distracted
the hyperrealistic cinemagoers made of silicone
the project remains on-site until October 19th, 2025
project info:
name: The Audience
artists: Elmgreen & Dragset | @elmgreenanddragsetstudio
event: Prada Mode London
dates: October 15th to 19th, 2025
location: Town Hall in King’s Cross, London, UK
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