Soundwalk Collective

INVISIBLE LANDSCAPE, 2025

Stephan Crasneanscki
(1969, based in Berlin)

Simone Merli
(1978, based in Berlin)

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Control room

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INVISIBLE LANDSCAPE

feat. Anika, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jim Jarmusch, Nan Goldin, Natalia Lafourcade, Willem Dafoe
Audio - 4 channels, triptych takeoff, LED, luminous tubes, quartz, analog clocks
Hard. 221'42"

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Invisible Landscape is a sound installation imagined for the great hall and control room of the Chandoline power plant - a former hydroelectric cathedral now disused. Conceived as a journey through vanished or vanishing landscapes, the project takes the listener from one extreme to another: from the glaciers of Greenland, recorded by Stephan Crasneanscki in the summer of 2024, to the Atacama desert, the driest place on earth. Melting ice becomes sound matter, amplified by the spectral feedback of Jim Jarmusch's guitar, which echoes the disappearance of glaciers around the world, before giving way to the sounds of the desert, where the voices of Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nan Goldin and Willem Dafoe recite the indexes of Rachel Carson, pioneer of ecology, transforming the scientific inventory into an elegy.

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Further on, Natalia Lafourcade's voice and song of mourning invoke the memory and wisdom of indigenous cultures, while Anika Henderson weaves, through the words of T. S. Eliot, a poetic resistance to the disappearance of the living.

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A visual dimension accompanies the sound composition, developed by Stephan Crasneanscki: a glass triptych entitled Décollage presents partially erased images of Valais glaciers now gone, giving way to new landscapes. In the center of the space, a raw glass sculpture evokes the melting of glaciers. Two original clocks from the control room, modified to disrupt the linearity of time, evoke the "tipping point" theory.

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Between industrial resonances, natural materials, embodied voices and visual imprints, Invisible Landscape explores the absence, memory and fragility of ecosystems, inviting us to listen to - and see - what the world is losing and what it still has left to pass on.



Artistic direction: Stephan Crasneanscki
Arrangements and production: Stephan Crasneanscki, Simone Merli, Sofia Sanseverino
Field recordings in Greenland / Granular synthesis: Stephan Crasneanscki
Additional field recordings in Greenland: Carlota Marques
Modular synthesis, particle sound: Simone Merli, Benjamin Flesser
Texts: Rachel Carson, T.S. Eliot, Stephan Crasneanscki Mixing: Lorenzi Setti

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Central hall

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WEDNESDAY, SEP. 122012, 2025

Stephan Crasneanscki
(1969, based in Berlin)
‍

Control room

‍
INVISIBLE LANDSCAPE

feat. Anika, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jim Jarmusch, Nan Goldin, Natalia Lafourcade, Willem Dafoe
Audio - 4 channels, triptych takeoff, LED, luminous tubes, quartz, analog clocks
Hard. 221'42"

‍
Invisible Landscape is a sound installation imagined for the great hall and control room of the Chandoline power plant - a former hydroelectric cathedral now disused. Conceived as a journey through vanished or vanishing landscapes, the project takes the listener from one extreme to another: from the glaciers of Greenland, recorded by Stephan Crasneanscki in the summer of 2024, to the Atacama desert, the driest place on earth. Melting ice becomes sound matter, amplified by the spectral feedback of Jim Jarmusch's guitar, which echoes the disappearance of glaciers around the world, before giving way to the sounds of the desert, where the voices of Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nan Goldin and Willem Dafoe recite the indexes of Rachel Carson, pioneer of ecology, transforming the scientific inventory into an elegy.

‍
Further on, Natalia Lafourcade's voice and song of mourning invoke the memory and wisdom of indigenous cultures, while Anika Henderson weaves, through the words of T. S. Eliot, a poetic resistance to the disappearance of the living.

‍
A visual dimension accompanies the sound composition, developed by Stephan Crasneanscki: a glass triptych entitled Décollage presents partially erased images of Valais glaciers now gone, giving way to new landscapes. In the center of the space, a raw glass sculpture evokes the melting of glaciers. Two original clocks from the control room, modified to disrupt the linearity of time, evoke the "tipping point" theory.

‍
Between industrial resonances, natural materials, embodied voices and visual imprints, Invisible Landscape explores the absence, memory and fragility of ecosystems, inviting us to listen to - and see - what the world is losing and what it still has left to pass on.



Artistic direction: Stephan Crasneanscki
Arrangements and production: Stephan Crasneanscki, Simone Merli, Sofia Sanseverino
Field recordings in Greenland / Granular synthesis: Stephan Crasneanscki
Additional field recordings in Greenland: Carlota Marques
Modular synthesis, particle sound: Simone Merli, Benjamin Flesser
Texts: Rachel Carson, T.S. Eliot, Stephan Crasneanscki Mixing: Lorenzi Setti

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Central hall

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WEDNESDAY, SEP. 122012, 2025

Audio - 3 channels
Dur. 60'00"


In the main exhibition space, this sound work unfolds in the form of brief interventions lasting around one minute, broadcast every ten minutes. Designed to coexist with other sound pieces in the room, this series acts as a discreet but persistent interruption - an aquatic breath disrupting the general flow.

Composed from recordings made by Stephan Crasneanscki at the Mauvoisin dam, about an hour south of Sion, the piece establishes a direct link with the Chandoline power station, once powered by water from the same dam. The power station ceased operations on Wednesday, September 12, 2012, the date to which the work refers.

On the power station's large windows, Crasneanscki has also installed a visual work composed of indexes taken from the works of Rachel Carson - marine biologist and pioneering figure of modern ecology, best known for her book Silent Spring (1962). The selected words, centred around the themes of water and melting glaciers, were printed upside down and inside out on the glass, so that sunlight projected them onto the floor of the exhibition space. Depending on the time of day and the intensity of the light, these words appear more or less clearly - ghostly traces of knowledge, of a natural world on the verge of extinction.

Sound recording on the Grande Dixence dam, Switzerland & music processing: Stephan Crasneanscki
Mixing: Lorenzi Setti Texts: Rachel Carson
Graphic design: Romain Iannone
Typography: François Rappo

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Soundwalk Collective

Composed of contemporary artist Stephan Crasneanscki and producer Simone Merli, Soundwalk Collective integrate sound, film, and mixed-media in site- and context-specific artwork.

Evolving along multi-disciplinary lines, Soundwalk Collective has cultivated long-term creative collaborations with artist and writer Patti Smith, late director Jean-Luc Goddard, photographer Nan Goldin, choreographer Sasha Waltz, film dircetor and musician Jim Jarmusch, and actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg, among others.

Central to their artistic philosophy is the exploration of sound as a medium to navigate and interpret the complexities of human experience and the environment. In doing so, their practice engages in the narrative potential of sound across mediums such as art installations, dance, music and film.

Their soundtrack for All The Beauty and the Bloodshed (directed by Laura Poitras) won the Golden Lion at the 2022 Venice Festival, and was performed live at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2024, Soundwalk Collective presented and performed a three-day program, Correspondences, with Patti Smith at the Venice Festival, at the invitation of the Fondation Cartier.

Soundwalk Collective have performed and exhibited at institutions, festivals and fairs including Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York), CCB (Lisbon), Centre Pompidou (Paris), documenta (Kassel), FRIEZE (New York), kurimanzutto (New York), Manifesta (Palermo), Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin), Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo), MOT Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin (Medellin), Onassis Stegi (Athens), Piknic (Seoul), Volksbühne (Berlin).

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Audio - 3 channels
Dur. 60'00"


In the main exhibition space, this sound work unfolds in the form of brief interventions lasting around one minute, broadcast every ten minutes. Composed from recordings made by Stephan Crasneanscki at the Mauvoisin dam, about an hour south of Sion, the piece establishes a direct link with the Chandoline power station, which was once powered by water from the same dam. The power station ceased operations on Wednesday, September 12, 2012, the date to which the work refers.On the power station's large picture windows, Crasneanscki has also installed a visual work composed of indexes extracted from the works of Rachel Carson - marine biologist and pioneering figure of modern ecology, best known for her book Silent Spring (1962). The selected words, centred around the themes of water and melting glaciers, were printed upside down and inside out on the glass, so that sunlight projected them onto the floor of the exhibition space. Depending on the time of day and the intensity of the light, these words appear more or less clearly - ghostly traces of knowledge, of a natural world on the verge of disappearing.Sound recordings on the Grande Dixence dam, Switzerland & musical processing: Stephan Crasneanscki Mixing: Lorenzi Setti Texts: Rachel Carson Graphic design: Romain Iannone

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‍

‍

Soundwalk Collective

Composed of contemporary artist Stephan Crasneanscki and producer Simone Merli, Soundwalk Collective integrate sound, film, and mixed-media in site- and context-specific artwork.

Evolving along multi-disciplinary lines, Soundwalk Collective has cultivated long-term creative collaborations with artist and writer Patti Smith, late director Jean-Luc Goddard, photographer Nan Goldin, choreographer Sasha Waltz, film dircetor and musician Jim Jarmusch, and actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg, among others.

Central to their artistic philosophy is the exploration of sound as a medium to navigate and interpret the complexities of human experience and the environment. In doing so, their practice engages in the narrative potential of sound across mediums such as art installations, dance, music and film.

Their soundtrack for All The Beauty and the Bloodshed (directed by Laura Poitras) won the Golden Lion at the 2022 Venice Festival, and was performed live at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2024, Soundwalk Collective presented and performed a three-day program, Correspondences, with Patti Smith at the Venice Festival, at the invitation of the Fondation Cartier.

Soundwalk Collective have performed and exhibited at institutions, festivals and fairs including Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York), CCB (Lisbon), Centre Pompidou (Paris), documenta (Kassel), FRIEZE (New York), kurimanzutto (New York), Manifesta (Palermo), Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin), Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo), MOT Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin (Medellin), Onassis Stegi (Athens), Piknic (Seoul), Volksbühne (Berlin).