RACHY MCEWAN
Rachy McEwan is an interdisciplinary artist, design researcher, and technologist based in London. Her practice combines art, interactive systems, and emerging technologies to investigate urban ecologies, digital infrastructures, and more-than-human interaction. Working across painting, programming, 3D imaging, speculative design, and installation, she develops participatory experiences that examine how technological systems shape perception, behaviour, and environmental relationships.

Rachy graduated with a First Class BA in Painting and Printmaking from The Glasgow School of Art, where she received the RSA New Contemporaries Award, and later completed an MA in Material Futures at Central Saint Martins with Distinction, where she was shortlisted for the Maison/0 LVMH Maison Award. Her work has been exhibited internationally across London, Paris, Milan, Amsterdam, Estonia, and Glasgow, including presentations at Saatchi Galleryand BASE Milano.

Alongside her artistic practice, Rachy works as a design researcher with the Design Museum, developing projects exploring environmental sensing, participatory technologies, and ecological futures. She frequently collaborates across disciplines including engineering, arboriculture, science, and creative technology, combining technical experimentation with critical and conceptual inquiry.



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Gotchi


What if plants could tell you how they feel… through a Tamagotchi-like device?

This garden bed isn’t just growing – it’s transmitting signals.

Beneath the soil, small sensors pick up shifts in moisture, nutrients, and environmental change, powered by nature, including solar and experimental bio-batteries made from algae and soil microbes.

The data is collected using LoRa (a long-range, low-power communication system) and decoded through a Tamagotchi – virtual pets- popular in the 1990s. When the plants need care, the Gotchi reacts, signalling you to act.

This project connects planting and digital play, inviting people to hack, grow, and experiment to better understand the garden.

Take a closer look: what are these plants trying to tell you right now?


In collaboration with Kalpana Arias. Showcased at the Design Museum