David Shearing (b. 1983) is a multi-award-winning artist and placemaking specialist creating immersive multimedia and community centred art practice. His work focuses on how audiences engage both physically and conceptually with design and installation art. Through intimate and often spectacular installations using video, sound, and natural materials, David explores audience engagement and placemaking.He is the founder and Artistic Director of the design studio Variable Matter and serves as a lecturer in Experimental Arts and Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. David holds a PhD in ‘Audience Immersion and the Experience of Scenography’ (2015) from the University of Leeds.David has served as a trustee and chair of the board for Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and co-wrote and chaired Havering’s bid to be London Borough of Culture 2023. He co-authored Havering’s consortium cultural strategy, ‘A Good Life’ (2025-2028).Recent notable works include the five-star digital and immersive experience ‘New Beginning’ (2023), The Rising Sun (2022)—a light-responsive installation in Romford Town Centre, and Black Rock (2017), which was selected for the UK National Exhibition of Performance Design (2019). Other significant projects include INCREDIBLE THINGS (2017), a city-wide participation project and artistic manifesto, The Weather Café (2016) in Leeds, and The Dock (2016), a commission for the Week 53 Festival in Salford.In 2014, David was awarded a Sky Academy Arts Scholarship, leading to the creation of The Weather Machine (2015) in partnership with West Yorkshire Playhouse and stage@leeds, which won Silver at the World Stage Design exhibition in 2017. His 2013 work, and it all comes down to this…, won Gold at World Stage Design for best installation design. He was scenographer on projects such as Beacons (2010) by Yvon Bonenfant, which featured in EMPAC New York and toured the UK.