A newly commissioned film and immersive installation by Jenkin van Zyl, exploring themes of desire, self-preservation and the blurring of original and copy within a decaying cryonics facility.
Jenkin van Zyl is showing Enclosure at Somerset House, a newly commissioned film and installation that runs from 24 September to 29 November 2026. It's his first major London exhibition, and it's taking over the Somerset House Studios on the Strand.
The film is set in a decaying cryonics facility in the English countryside. It follows a small group of re-enactors going through a ritual of upkeep whose purpose has long since blurred: every year, on 'Founding Day', 'Donors' return to renew or terminate their doubles, the 'Cherubs', in a ceremony meant to sever the connection between the original and the copy. A starlet named Mercy, who lent her likeness to the programme, arrives to terminate her contract, but the process instead collapses the distance between them, making the intended division porous and unstable. Van Zyl describes the work as asking what happens when systems built on desire and self-preservation outlast the conditions that created them, presenting maintenance as a form of denial.
The installation extends the film into a large-scale immersive environment, so you're not just sitting and watching a screen. It's built out of fairground signage, holograms, inflatable cocoons and decaying ephemera, bringing the world of the film into the room around you. The whole thing was developed while van Zyl was in residence at Somerset House Studios and co-commissioned with Film and Video Umbrella and HOME in Manchester.
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It's on at Somerset House Studios, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA, from 24 September to 29 November 2026.
