“Song For The End Of The World”, the debut solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Rosa Sittig-Bell (b. 2001, Seattle) . Drawing from the surreal intersections of digital subcultures, survivalist mythology, and musical experimentation, “Song For The End Of The World” presents an exploration of the aesthetics and psychology of contemporary apocalyptic thinking.
Sittig-Bell's work originates from an obsessive fascination with doomsday preppers and the collapse-oriented imagination that flourishes in online spaces like Reddit forums. Her paintings and installations reflect both sincere curiosity and critical distance — a study of how individuals in an era of instability construct fantasies of survival, isolation, and control.
“Song For The End Of The World” takes us through a landscape marked by real estate listings for underground bunkers “Bunker for Sale, Montana”and “Survivalist Bunker Near Big Bear City”, DIY survival guides “What’s In My Bug-Out-Bag?”, and mythological omens like the oarfish — known in Japanese folklore as the “messenger from the sea dragon god’s palace” — seen in works like “Beached Messenger from the Sea God's Palace.” These references speak to how myth and media shape our imagination of disaster.
At the heart of Sittig-Bell’s inquiry is a critique of the hyper-individualism embedded in American prepper culture — a survivalist logic that resists community in favour of suspicion, autonomy, and privatised safety. Yet, rather than dramatising collapse, the artist chooses a tone of play and quiet absurdity. Her piece “What’s In My Bug-Out-Bag?” features a Sports Trumpeter bag emblazoned with the phrase “break a leg” on the inside — a satirical nod to the performative nature of survivalism, the futility of preparedness, and the internet culture trope of inventorying personal possessions.
Musicality permeates the exhibition in both content and form. Inspired by amateur orchestras like the Portsmouth Sinfonia and retro computational art, Sittig-Bell creates what she calls a “computational graphic score symphony.” Using obsolete 90s pirated software, generative programming, and painting, she builds a fragmented, almost broken song — a tribute to the emotional resonance of music in times of fear and uncertainty.
Music in this exhibition is a form of speculative communication, It allows space for collective play and expression, even as the world feels increasingly disjointed.
Rosa Sittig-Bell lives and works between London and New York. Her practice engages digital reappropriation and obsolescence, prodding at the eventual disintegration of imagery, as personal image archives transform and collapse through the upload, reblog, and re-materialization cycle. This is encountered through the lens of play and fear. Sittig-Bell has been included in group shows with Hew Hood Gallery, London (2025), 12V, London (2024), and Eyes Holding Hands Collective, Seattle (2023). She graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2024 with a MA in technical Art