Photosymphony, A Live plant orchestra - DINNER SERIES

Multisensory installation, New York, May 2025

In this intimate, multisensory performance dinner by British artist Millie Brown and natural perfumer Beckielou Brown, the boundaries between human, plant, and environment are dissolved through sound, scent, and sustenance. Presented during Frieze Art Week in New York, the second edition of The Photosymphony Dinner Series transformed the act of dining into an experiential installation, an ephemeral living environment where guests are immersed in a symphony of plant life.

At the heart of the work is Brown’s ongoing Photosymphony, a durational performance and installation in which plants are connected to bio-sonification devices that translate their electrical signals into sound. This botanical orchestra fills the space with an evolving auditory composition, rendering the inaudible intelligence of nature perceptible. Guests dine within this living soundscape, surrounded by a plant-sculpted tablescape that serves as both environment and performer.

The dining experience unfolds in layers. A plant-based menu by Chef Alex Goldstein is paired with botanical cocktails from Seedlip and Johnny Walker Blue Label. Each course is accompanied by an evolving scent-scape designed by Beckielou Brown, founder of the natural fragrance house Altra. These custom olfactory compositions respond to the surrounding flora, heightening the sensory encounter and amplifying the presence of the plants in ways that linger beyond taste or smell.

“With Photosymphony, I seek to give voice to the silent intelligence of nature,” Millie Brown reflects. “By translating the frequencies of plants into sound, we begin to experience the consciousness and presence of life that surrounds us daily yet often goes unnoticed. This work invites us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world not as separate, but as a living orchestra in which we all play a part.”

The Photosymphony Dinner Series positions the dinner table as a site of communion, where guests are invited to inhabit the living artwork, not as observers but as participants. Within this setting, the act of eating becomes a ritual of ecological attunement. Conversations unfold around climate consciousness, interconnection, and the subtle energies that bind living systems. The performance draws attention not to spectacle, but to presence, asking what it means to be in reciprocity with the natural world.

Conceptually rigorous yet sensorially lush, The Photosymphony Dinner Series reimagines performance as a living system, responsive, participatory, and regenerative. It is a work of ecological listening and embodied reflection, inviting guests into a shared choreography of awareness, nourishment, and conversation.

Photosymphony, A Live plant orchestra - DINNER SERIES

Multisensory installation, Los Angeles, March 2024.

In this intimate iteration of Photosymphony, British performance artist Millie Brown and perfumer Beckielou Brown, founder of the natural haute fragrance house Altra—united for the Los Angeles debut of The Photosymphony Dinner Series, hosted at The West Hollywood Edition during Frieze Art Week. The work marked the first collaboration between the sisters, who transformed the dining environment into a living multisensory installation, a convergence of plant-generated sound, botanical cuisine, and olfactory composition.

Rooted in Brown’s ongoing exploration of vegetal consciousness, Photosymphony invites participants to experience the silent intelligence of plants made audible. For this iteration, guests were seated around a lush, plant-filled tablescape, where the flora were connected to bio-sonification devices that translated their subtle electrical impulses into ambient musical tones—rendering an orchestra composed entirely of living matter. The result: a delicate, immersive soundscape emanating directly from the plants themselves.

As the evening unfolded, a plant-forward tasting menu by Chef John Fraser (Ardor) was served alongside botanical cocktails by Doce Mezcal. With each course, an evolving scent-scape designed by Beckielou Brown infused the space, layered aromatic compositions that responded to the sensory textures of the meal and sonic atmosphere. Together, these elements enveloped guests in an ephemeral ecosystem, heightening awareness of the reciprocal relationships between human and non-human life.

“Photosymphony aims to open a dialogue between humans and plants,” Millie Brown notes. “It allows us to enter a deeper state of communion with nature, something increasingly rare in a world driven by disconnection.”

This Los Angeles dinner served as a precursor to the upcoming public gallery presentation of Photosymphony, which debuted as a full-scale indoor forest in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That pioneering work laid the conceptual and ecological foundation for the dinner series: a living, breathing installation in which each participant becomes part of a larger symbiotic exchange.