Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone

About

A Garden of Forking Paths – Finale 4 closed MaerzMusik 2022 by transforming the silent green Kulturquartier into an interconnected field of listening. Amid pandemic constraints, the traditional marathon event The Long Now was reimagined as a constellation of sound works distributed across the Betonhalle, Kuppelhalle, and Atelier 2. Within this framework, Jana Winderen’s Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone was presented in Atelier 2 as a focused listening station for soundscape and field-recording practices. The work immerses listeners in the dynamic border between open sea and sea ice in the Barents Sea, a fragile zone crucial to global oxygen production through the spring bloom of phytoplankton. Using underwater recordings, Winderen reveals the crackle of shifting ice and the acoustic presence of marine life—bearded seals, humpbacks, and orcas—situating art as a form of ecological attention and testimony.