Art, Research, Responsibility

Composers, researchers and artists from diverse backgrounds are rethinking how we listen to and represent nature opening new ways to understand our place within it.

“I’m not really inside any particular genre,” says Meriheini Luoto. Her latest album, Talven uneen vaipuen (“Falling Into Winter’s Sleep”), nominated as album of the year in both classical and folk categories, delves deep into mixed feelings about nature.

Matthew Whittall and Robert Macfarlane’s large-scale choral work The World Tree traces an arc from the Ice Age to the present day from the perspective of a single tree, and stands as a powerful statement against humanity’s callous exploitation of nature.

Research is no longer merely about producing knowledge but also about societal influence — and this is the new normal.

Two very different works enter into an unexpected dialogue: one explores getting lost and navigation, the other the limits of our relationship to nature. Together, they reveal something essential about how we understand our place within the natural world.