The Way Earthly Things Are Going II (Mother Earth’s Lament) (2025) weaves together the emotive force of folk rhapsody, contemporary data-driven compositional structures, and a multisensory environment to create an immersive experience that reflects on the interdependence between the human and the environment. The installation draws from environmental research, oral narratives, and traditional songs of grief and reverence for nature. These elements are recomposed into a contemporary choral work that gives voice to the Earth’s suffering, and to the fragility of the ecosystems we continue to erode. The lyrics of the work are structured in the tradition of the folk lament—simple, direct, and emotionally resonant. The verses recount the Earth’s pain in vivid language, while the chorus anchors the emotional landscape in collective grief. Folk songs, long vessels of cultural memory, hold within them the ancestral knowledge and lived wisdom of communities that have cultivated a coexistence with the land. In The Way Earthly Things Are Going II, these songs are reinterpreted by a contemporary choir of women and embedded into sculptural remnants of the natural world—tree stumps that once vibrated with life. Through this gesture, the installation bridges ancestral knowledge and present-day ecological urgency, transforming each stump into a resonant body that mourns its own disappearance. The folk form becomes a vessel for planetary mourning—and perhaps, for a call to attention before silence takes hold.

WORK IN THE EXHIBITION:

The Way Earthly Things Are Going II (Mother Earth’s Lament) (2025), sound installation composed of loudspeakers embedded in wooden trunks, musical composition in loop, olfactory essence, natural fiber carpet, dimensions variable. Commissioned by Fundacao Bienal de Sao Paulo for the 36th Bienal, participation in Sao Paulo supported by ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, adaptation in Berlin commissioned by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)