A sound installation that spans the Ancestral Forest with 20 listening zone locations, including listening shade pods created by Thea Rae for a more active connection to the growing trees. Wonder through the wood sounds and forest sights, sit, lie, have a sunset chat, a morning view and listen.

Each speaker will play produced sounds sourced from wood materials – creating a forest of deep listening, with the unique sound collage constantly forming new shapes based on location and moment throughout each day and night. Listening zones are not enclosed but are in an open space curated to enable a full appreciation of the forest and surroundings while experiencing layers of sounds from the various speakers dotted around.

Thematically, the installation will play with ideas of new life, community and sustainability as well as sound to nurture growth concerning concepts such as Music for Plants. The pieces are written and produced by MSCTY_Studio. The compositional process comes from the patterns of tree trunks and their growth lines, fractals in leaves, and the representation of a sea of young saplings in an emerging Miyawaki forest.

MSCTY Studio includes samples of Midori Takada performing the fragments of music on her rosewood marimba and merges this with stems of a full soundscape from processed recordings made in original Miyawaki forests in Japan.

The way we see it, the Ancestral Forest is a beautifully curated and created Sonic Elements installation in itself.