Whoever is in London and in the mood for art – while also discovering one of the city’s most unusual houses – should put The Cosmic House in Notting Hill on their list. Until 18 December 2026, the house presents a site-specific installation of Isaac Julien’s new moving-image work “All That Changes You. Metamorphosis”.
And the setting could hardly be more fitting. The Cosmic House on Lansdowne Walk was the home of architectural theorist Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick Jencks and is itself a manifesto of Postmodernism: architecture becomes a playful exploration of symbols, science, mythology and cosmology. Today, the Grade I-listed house is run by the Jencks Foundation, hosting exhibitions, residencies and salons that bring architecture into dialogue with art, science, philosophy and poetry.
It is precisely this world of ideas that Isaac Julien explores in “All That Changes You. Metamorphosis”. The work considers transformation as a defining condition of existence, moving across ecological, temporal and cultural realms. Alongside The Cosmic House, California’s redwood forests, a glass house in the Cotswolds and the frescoed interiors of Palazzo Te appear throughout the film. Julien developed the work in close collaboration with his long-term partner Mark Nash.
“All That Changes You. Metamorphosis” was originally conceived as a ten-screen installation for the 500th anniversary of Palazzo Te in Mantua. For London, the work has been reimagined specifically in response to The Cosmic House and its architecture. At its heart are ideas of duration, cyclical return and non-linear time – concepts that already informed Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick’s vision of the house as a kind of architectural model of the universe.
Conceptually, Julien casts the net wide, drawing on feminist science fiction and critical theory as well as the work of Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Naomi Mitchison and Donna Haraway. Sheila Atim and Gwendoline Christie play the two protagonists, Lilith and Naomi, as they move through landscapes and architectures.
Eszter Steierhoffer, Director of The Cosmic House, beautifully describes the dialogue between film and architecture: “Isaac Julien’s film transforms the house into a multi-temporal and symbolic space, revealing architecture as a way of thinking about time, change, and cosmology.”
GoSee tip: Make sure to leave enough time to explore the house itself. The Cosmic House is far more than a setting for Julien’s installation – it becomes part of the work, and for anyone passionate about architecture, design and visual culture, the house alone is worth the visit.
Isaac Julien – All That Changes You. Metamorphosis
The Cosmic House, London
22 April – 18 December 2026
19 Lansdowne Walk, London W11 3AH
