shemza.digital roots #2 extends the visual and conceptual language of shemza.digital roots #1, translating the intimate experience of meditation into a living, evolving data-visualisation artwork. Developed by Aphra Shemza, based on Anwar Jalal Shemza’s roots series and created in collaboration with the Art Forum Youth Group at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the work draws upon the same abstracted forms inspired by Arabic calligraphy and fourteenth-century Iraqi botanical manuscripts explored through research at the British Library.

Each time a participant engages with the meditation experience, a new root system is generated and added to an ever-expanding floating cosmos of interconnected forms. The artwork becomes both archive and organism: a collective portrait shaped by presence, breath and participation. Through this continually growing digital ecology, shemza.digital roots #2 makes visible the unseen ties between individuals, suggesting that even fleeting moments of reflection ripple outward into a wider shared consciousness. In an era often defined by division and isolation, the work offers a poetic reminder that human connection is cumulative, living and deeply interdependent.

ArtForum members that contributed to this project: Michael, Joy, Olivia, Mickey, Jenna, Anna, Lizzie, Emily.

ArtForum youth group is led by RAG arts Rosalind Manasseh as part of Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s youth programs and supported by Dinosaur Kilby Digital Producer.

shemza.digital roots is supported by Arts Council England and the Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza.