Seventh Lisbon Architecture Triennale

The silent spring of Rachel Carson exposed the dangers of pesticides, sparked environmental awareness, and launched the modern ecological movement worldwide. Today, this silence is also connected to the intensification of wildfires, the silence of forests once teeming with life, the roar of ice melting into the ocean and the growls of storms sweeping onto coastal communities. The sound of climate change and extinction resonates both with eerie silence and with the ultra-loud operations of extractive capitalism both on land and at sea. The absence of natural sounds is a haunting reminder of ecosystems lost and the urgent call to protect what remains.

We tramped in our black coats
Sweeping time, sweeping time
In the red forest
Emerging to face the day
Pink with iodine
Wet, bedraggled, a bit gone
Adorned in flowers
Radiant, radioactive
Following a trail we somehow knew

Rain, no longer rain
Tears, no longer tears
And the grail, oh the grail
Was this close
Finished with foil
Wrapped in plutonium

We rambled strange forests
Not a living thing
But the buzzing of flies
And mischievous fairies
Who danced underfoot
Branches snapped in our faces
Our kingdom
Behind a chain link fence

We had our contamination
Coronations
We grappled in the quarries
We polished marbles
And we knelt and shot for spoils
In our fervent circles
We set up our furious camps
Our tents, punctuated with pegs
Nicked with pocket knives
Little foxes gaging the hard earth
Cursing the bottom land
For making us soft

We gathered rye
Stuffed sacks
Made pillows for our men
We were soldiers with no war
We wrung the blood
From soaking beds
We covered the martyrs’
Rolling heads
We balanced the buckets
Filled to the brim
And we saw nothing
And everything

Our ships boasted obscenities
Scribbled on parchment sail
Floating illiterate rivers
Overturned in pools
Of rain water muck
We blew songs of praise
Into horns of sacred animals
Cat calls, confessions
Teenage prayers
Woven into tapestries
Of cloistered gardens

No mother have we now
Vows erupted
With a new violence
Bearing no ill will
Saved to be born
Contaminated with a dust
Sparkled with such strangeness
That we wept for joy
A blue light projected
From the cap of being
We climbed the stairs
Into a bluer heaven
Scarred with streamers
Bleeding the wind
We savoured the spectacle
And then it disappeared
But we were already gone

We possessed a new radiance
Dew dropped from our noses
We boasted shining skin
Shedding it without a sigh
We raised our lanterns
And some seemed to walk
In a light of their own
We drew close to our new kind
Our regulation boots, of dog tongue
Our dresses of ermine and fleece
Our glad rags woven by the blind
For ours was a country of sockets
That were empty
Eyes that were empty and yet within
One could read all our childish hopes
Each of us, with our own story
Our own sweet life
Cut with the cloth of a static strife

It is time, we hear the call
It is time, we have our black coats
Sweeping time
Sweeping time
It is sleeping time
And soon we will break
From our moth husks
Alive in the night
The sky smeared
With stars we no longer see
A child’s creed
Stitched on handkerchiefs

God does not abandon us
We are all he knows
We must not abandon him
He is ourselves
The ether of our deeds

Listen, listen
The whistling hobo calls
Sweeping time, sweeping time
We sleep, we scheme
We press the vibrant string
Asleep for a thousand years
Then happily wake again

Plutonium 2 3 9
Protons 94
Neutrons 1 4 5
Decay mode / Alpha decay
Calling towers
Water run 1 7 2
Water level +25
Reactor 4
Decay mode, uncalculated
14 minus 22, Point 2, point 3
5 % Radiation reading
15 dash 4 5 0
Reactor 5 Slash 6 8
5000 point 0 0 - 16, 15, 10

All the birds were singing
On the night they slept
All the birds were screaming
Nothing was left
Each little one
In his own little bed
Each with a crown
On each little head
All the birds were singing
And every note
Gave birth to nothing
For all is gone
For a thousand years
And a million tears
And a thousand answers
On an empty floor
There are roses under foot
That one cannot smell
There is fruit on the vine
That one cannot eat
And they went to bed hungry
And hungry they’ll sleep
For a thousand years

Птицы песни пели дети ложились спать
Маленьĸие дети в маленьĸую ĸровать
Каждый в ĸроватĸе дремлет своей
Каждый в ĸороне на голове
Птицы ĸричали ĸричали
А звуĸи молчали молчали
Там где на тысячу лет мир исчез
На миллионы слез
На тыщу ответов в осĸолĸах на голом полу
Тронуть нельзя под ногами розы
Есть нельзя виноград на лозах
Они голодными легли в ĸровать
Голодными и будут спать
Всю тысячу лет
Тысячу лет
Свет теперь притуши
Пальчиĸ на фитилеĸ
Пальчиĸ светит горит
А малыш будет спать
Тысячу лет
Тысячу лет
А птицы будут петь
Тысячу лет

The sight that was my power
The hunger and the feast
That vanished with the hour
I no longer need
I am the silence and the arrow
I am the muse, the father’s seed
I am the mutant sparrow
The child that does not speak

And the blood of his mind
Was smeared upon the walls
All of his being denied
The words and the finger of the lord

He was as the son of Jonah
Fleeing his sacred calling
Crying out to his God
Let me be, let me merely live
Let me observe unscathed
Let me see with pure eyes
That do not turn inward
Let me be a vagabond, who prays
Takes a bit of bread
Observing mankind
Observing nakedness

The walls of the church
Had been lovingly prepared
Covered with layers of lime and lead
White as the flakes that fell
Awaiting the holy trinity
The acolyte, the young bell caster
Was filled with joy, anticipating
The work of the great master
He had not seen him
But he had felt him
And then, he heard
The terrible voice in the wind

And he trembled
He heard the artist approaching
And the the sounds of his steps
Breaking across the frozen terrain
The voice of creation
Was brushing across the artist’s heart
And he cried out
And the acolyte turned
Hearing the masters cry, froze

He heard the arrogant sighs
He heard the artist
Twisting and turning in his own destiny
And the veins of his mind were twisted as well

The acolyte stood by the door
As the artist entered the sacred space
He was moved by the whiteness of the walls
That had been prepared so lovingly
That he wished nothing more
Than to have them free of his touch
Not to be adorned by his hand
Nor to have the blood of his mind
Smeared upon them
He desired that they could be left
Like the unblemished hills
And the wide expanses
Covered in virgin snow

The artist cried out to be free
And the acolyte who knew not of himself
Ran towards the arms of nature
Calling to him, as a mother calls

The child that does not speak

You, boy
What do you fear
Take off your heavy shoes
They’re quite dirty
Are you hungry?
Have you no tongue?
I will bring you bread
Tonight you will sleep in the hay
And above you
Will be eight crescent moons
The thick clay, on your shoes
It is grey and malleable
I could make a bowl with it..
Could you bring me some?
I will give you a place to sleep
And I will pray for your father
Let me see your hands
They are dirty, callused and strong

Who am I? I am nature

Once, I heard everything
I roamed the forest
I ate of the white snake
And heard the voice of every living thing
My eyes were two glowing orbs
That I plucked and rolled
Across the forest floor
And blinded, I dug deeply
For the clay that formed the dove
Come, come see, it rests in my hand
And it breathes not

I breathe in the mouth of birds
But you, young acolyte
Will give the people hope
In the shape of a bell
Kneel down, know thyself and dig
Dig deep into the earth
Claw into the deep
Which is not deep at all

Draw from the molten river, it is yours
Draw from the water
It will form the chalice of life
Draw from the core of your being
Draw from the golden loom
Draw from the crescent moons
Draw from the robes, that are your robes
Draw from your naked feet
Draw from the wailing and the wind

And you, you, artist
Silent monk, lingering in the shadows
You, bow your head
Bow your head
Bow your head
Three times the lord was denied

Deny no more
Draw from your vibrant soul
The thorn and the flower
Drink from the chalice of life
The sight that was your power
Artist, you are born, deny no more

Bell caster, you are born, cry no more
Bell caster, lie no more

I am the curve of sound
I am the open door

You cast bells
You paint icons

You cast bells
You paint icons

Cry no more
Deny no more

You cast bells
You paint icons

You cast bells
You paint icons

Stephan Crasneanscki: Correspondences (2017–ongoing) really started as long conversations strolling down the street; a flânerie in different cities where we happened to be spending time together. Those discussions inspired future journeys for me, because when I start a new record, I usually don't have a really clear idea of what I'm looking for yet. I often prefer to go to a place and just let the sound dictate my time and space. I go with an open ear because I think you have to be present to record, and to hear what the track will become is often dictated by the sound. I'm not a musician, I come from field recording and sonic art, and so I’ve allowed the sound to dictate the development of the tracks. I sometimes go for one sound but another one happens, and the overlapping creates a musicality, a potential, a direction.

Patti Smith: There's almost nowhere that you won’t go. You've gone up the sacred mountains of India and down the caves of Mexico. We wanted to do a piece about Chernobyl, which we have, and dedicated it to all the children who got pancreatic cancer from the radiation and, sadly, did not live long. We wanted them to be remembered. You went not only into the forest but also into the reactor—after getting special permission—to record the sonic atmosphere of a place, from the reactor to the forest, where the fruit might be beautiful and flowers are blossoming, but they're all radioactive. You’ve gone places to bring back the sound of a falling leaf, or the sound of the wind in Harar, or the sound of the wind in a cave in Mexico that's different from any other wind. And these things inspire me to improvise or write the poems or the monologues that I do.

SC: It's true, just the sound of a leaf falling down could suddenly awaken a completely new possibility of where the track can go. In Chernobyl, for example, I realized that when it was built, back in the time of the USSR, it was a really rich city and the best piano schools were there. There are hundreds of pianos all over town that have been rotten; radiation has been eating them up. So the tracks were composed out of all those notes and leftover sounds that the pianos would make when we were there. Often I see my field recording as uncovering an invisible landscape: when you record it, it manifests itself. And I think what you do in our experience of the studio, is that you’re able to manifest those spirits that the sound holds. It holds a memory of a poet or of children, and this is where you enter with your poetry—you’re manifesting, giving life, basically.

PS: You present me with sonic landscapes. It all sounds abstract, but it creates an atmosphere and almost an Earth that I can walk around in my mind. I can walk to these places or feel the spirits of these places because at this point in my life, I can't make difficult journeys. You’re going up to treacherous, dangerous places, mountains. And I like to be by the ocean or daydream at my desk. You’re the physical traveler and I become the mental traveler through the things you give me so generously, whether it’s sacred rocks hitting each other or church bells chiming. It’s a beautiful thing because I get to journey everywhere. I don't have to buy a ticket, don't have to go to the airport, I just listen and let myself be carried away. Listening to one another is the great key. This is where you excel between us; I'm not the best listener. You’re a beautiful listener because you will hear the simple, “Oh, those pebbles hitting each other, that is a sound I've never heard, even though I've been all over the world walking on different pebbles.” The sound of Jean-Luc Godard's footsteps in the snow, which you have recordings of, all of these things are precious. Listening is a very important way to listen to our inner self, to our blood, because everything our ancestors knew is in our blood.

SC: Listening... As I said before, in listening, there's an act of presence. And what I notice most often when I'm recording is that it requires me to be present. When we are in the present time, synchronicity happens and you see the world. Most of the time, we are hijacked by our mind or the talking of ourselves or others. Field recording is a practice of presence. It's a very slow process. Sometimes we think there's something and then, no, we go somewhere else. Progressively, layer by layer, it gets solidified and crystallized in a sense. These little stones or truths or little clarities or little peradam … they come during the journey and eventually the piece is created slowly, by having our conversations, but also in the different studios where we’ll go, in London, Berlin, New York, Paris. We'll go back and sometimes you’ll redo everything from scratch. There might be a piece we’ve redone many times over many years and suddenly something happens and then that's it: we know this is working, it’s there. We don't have a goal, and it's just in the process that it becomes clear.

PS: It's also a process of discovery through improvisation and channeling. I like the story of Medea that we worked on. You told me things I didn't know and I studied and read books and plays and contemplated Medea (2025). You went to the area of her world, and when I listened to this, I had no text. I just went into the studio, sat in front of the microphone, and listened to all the sounds that you brought back from her world: from the mountains, the sea, anywhere that resonated with her story. It just drew out of me one long monologue of her telling her whole life. I don't think I would have ever written that, and yet I'm so proud. These field recordings drew me into her physical world, and so we can merge the physical world with the spiritual. I’ve also been thinking that these recordings are like jump cuts, because they were improvisations and they just go as my mind went. Even in the telling of Medea, there are moments when the narrative isn’t linear or it doesn’t fill in all the space. When I work with text or live performance, I sometimes elaborate a little for clarity. And what the films that we worked on do for me, is that they fill in all those spaces so that you get a sense of the whole. That’s what a soundtrack does for film: it fills the space and creates an emotional texture for the sake of the visuals, for the actors, for the tension. I think our Correspondences are perfect soundtracks because they don’t tell everything. They leave space for the film, which gives additional substance to the narrative.

SC: I find the idea of not filling all the space interesting. When those pieces were made, I saw them as long travels into an invisible landscape, leaving space for the sound to unfold. Whether it’s the sound of the distant sea or your voice, everything breathes together, and leaves space for the image to find its rhythm within the drifting sound. When I listen to those tracks with my eyes closed, I can see those landscapes. It’s only later when we start collecting images, or when I go to film those landscapes, that the image finally surrenders to the sonic elements.

PS: I feel like we do our work nakedly. We just go in with an epiphany and create our work out of nothing. It’s the culmination of both of our fields of work, but it’s still naked. And then through these films it is given cloths of gold, and is no longer naked. It has beauty being naked—that’s what the records are—but I’m also so happy to see some clothing.

SC: It’s very true, like nakedly walking in a new land. In our process, the sound dictates what the image will be and you are right to say that we start naked and dress up after. In the installation for Correspondences, the visual crossing of eight screens that face each other is for me a metaphor of the studio process: all of its possibilities and infinite layers of meaning. The interplay between all these elements makes for interesting and unexpected encounters. The correspondences are powerful; destiny and tragedy are entangled and somehow enhance each other. I think of the seismic gun of Cry of the Lost (2025) and the melting and cracking of the ice in Prince of Anarchy (2025). They complement each other with this utter sense of inevitable climate catastrophe that we have embarked on.

PS: It’s the same and it’s strange because Prince of Anarchy has a very nineteenth-century feel and Cry of the Lost is so modern, but they’re about the same thing: about the loss of family and loved ones, the loss of our environment, ice, the beautiful silence of the sea. 

SC: The “Prince of Anarchy” was a name given to Peter Prokofiev, who was the first one to really see the ice melting, first as a geologist and later as an anarchist. His entire philosophy was inspired by native Siberian communities. Petroleum activity in the deep sea is the very cause of fossil fuel depletion and melting ice. The same happens between two projections within the exhibition: the mass extinction of animals and wildfires, facing each other, with your voice in the middle naming every forest we’ve burnt, every species that’s gone extinct since your birth. It forces the audience to face the madness we are in: the unfolding tragedy.

PS: To hear all the animals and look at the fire… You know, it’s the names of the animals but they’re gone, they're ashes, extinguished forever. And to look at the animals but hear the fire, it's all the same. This litany of what is gone, millions upon millions of acres of forest and all of its inhabitants… All these beautiful species, once preserved on the ark, are now gone. It was as if in the Bible somebody came onto the Ark of Noah with a machine gun and just went into a fury. A quarter of the ark would just be decimated, one species after another, before they could even start a new world.

SC: A “litany of what is gone.”

PS: Or better, “litany of the gone.”

SC: As we are talking today in Bogotá, Canada is experiencing its biggest wildfires in history. It’s so saddening.

PS: It still burns… “Still” is such a nice English word because it means being still, stillness, but it also means still happening. It’s got multiple meanings. So we have the world in flames, we have the melting of the polar regions… To me, Prince of Anarchy is also “science denied.” You know, our scientists have been telling us this for decades and we’ve just been turning our back; it’s so self-involved.

SC: We’ve become like fossil fuel vampires.

PS: For the sake of oil, for the sake of petrol. For the sake of killing the planet, for the sake of going down to destroy the sea and life within it. Just so we can cause the Earth to burn. But in the midst of it all, there is still art. We’re not just here to destroy. Even though we are destroying ourselves we are also here to create.

SC: Art is also a healing practice. It’s a path to become a better human being, to become more empathic, caring, sensible. Because there is no other way out, it’s either this path or facing our own extinction.

PS: Anything to become a better human, through art or activism. We need empathy for the animals, for the creatures of the sea, for the land, for nature. The artist is not necessarily empathic towards humans because the artist creates material things to inspire and comfort them. We need the whole spectrum of empathic humans, and artists have their own place within that realm. Greta Thunberg, Jane Goodall, Temple Grandin, Gerhard Richter, they all have their place in the spectrum. We need everyone: Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, the common man. Yesterday I saw this old guy on the street where my hotel is. He was all alone, picking up bits of paper and plastic, cleaning the street of debris. Maybe it was his job, but that act… When he was done, I watched him, he looked back and it was all nice. One person makes a difference, to not let it look like a heap of trash.

SC: That’s what I hear the most about our performances, that it provokes emotionality. It breaks down the fence around everybody’s hearts. Because this inability to access empathy is what is destroying us. This disconnection from ourselves is what brought us in this situation we’re in.

PS: Yes, we’re not empathic—if you’re in a nice climate and everything’s perfect, you don’t really care about what’s happening in Algeria, Death Valley, the ocean in Florida, or the Greek islands. You look at the newspapers and think: “Oh that’s terrible, but it’s not happening here.” When I went to Scandinavia to tour in early July, to escape the European summer heat, it was 93 degrees Fahrenheit in Oslo. There was a heatwave in Svalbard, which is close to the North Pole. We brought coats and sweaters and fur hats to perform in Svalbard and we didn’t need any of them.

SC: You sent me photos of a seed bank in this cave in Svalbard. I immediately thought of the seed of life, and the idea of life’s persistence, which is also one of our strengths as humans despite our destructive tendencies. 

PS: They have like 1.2 million seeds in that seed bank. But what they’re worried about is that the permafrost is melting. Everything is underground. If it starts getting soupy and soggy—and I saw some of it; it’s sort of beautiful as it melts, like glitters—it’s dangerous. They’re the closest place to the North Pole and they’re worried about their seed bank due to the lack of ice. What’s going to happen? You know, it’s just like looking at a couple of ice cubes in a cocktail glass. Someday these ice cubes are going to be as valuable as diamonds. But really, thinking about all these beautiful places and our work together, the field recordings have changed my life. I’ve improvised to rock and roll songs or three chords, to heavy metal sounds or feedback guitar, but the sonic impressions of sacred places have drawn out whole new things for me. So I’m grateful.