Seaweed and stones at the water's edge on Refshaleøen, a small painted robin on the rock in the foreground

Living Matters

a soundwalk meandering through Refshaleøen

Innumerable dancing microbes, digesting and transforming our waste. Birds flitting and fluttering, restless with the itch to fly south, to Spain. Sea turtles navigating by sensing Earth’s magnetic field, while the echo of the Big Bang still buzzes throughout the universe.

Living Matters is a soundwalk through the harbour area Refshaleøen in Copenhagen — revealing hidden worlds beneath your feet and around you. Follow a trail of voices through trees, water, radio waves, forgotten histories and unexpected encounters. As you walk, Refshaleøen unfolds as a place where nature, industry, culture and countless forms of life are deeply intertwined.

Rather than explaining the world, Living Matters invites you to experience it differently — through listening, moving and imagining. Deep tourism.

While you drift through this area, sounds and words will float through your ears and mind — inspired by writers such as Rachel Carson, Emanuele Coccia, Donna Haraway, Andreas Malm, Ed Yong and countless others whose thinking has seeped into this work in ways not always traceable.

A listener resting against a birch tree during the walk
Listen to the trailer
A walker lying in the grass at sunset, Copenhagen in the distance

Not to make things quieter, but to make them noisier. To jam the signal. To become disoriented. To circulate from Umwelt to Umwelt, from body to body, from sphere to sphere. To let millions of other bodies sprawl through our own and crawl back out again. To become termites in their organic skyscrapers.

How to walk it

  1. Download the ECHOES interactive sound walks app (iOS & Android) and search for Living Matters.
  2. Make sure your phone and headphones are fully charged.
  3. Put on your headphones and turn off noise cancellation.
  4. Switch to flight mode once the walk has downloaded, and avoid using your phone during the walk.
  5. The soundwalk is GPS-triggered — sounds and stories appear automatically as you move through the landscape at your own pace. The map shows the route, but once you begin, you can put your phone away and let the experience unfold around you.
Open Living Matters in Echoes →

Practical info

Location
Refshaleøen, Copenhagen
Language
English
Duration
Approx. 2 hours
Group size
Best experienced alone or in pairs — larger groups, please leave about 3 minutes between departures
Availability
Permanently available in the Echoes app from August 8th onward
The Living Matters sign on the quay at Refshaleøen

Credits

  • Concept, sound composition and writing: Sjoerd Leijten
  • Concept and routing: Johannes Bellinkx
  • Artistic advice and writing: Dennis Gaens
  • Voices: Sjoerd Leijten, Dennis Gaens, Eva Kijlstra, Inne Eysermans & Johannes Bellinkx
  • Bass clarinet: Fie Schouten
  • Produced by: Metropolis – Københavns Internationale Teater, SoAP Maastricht, C-Takt / Dommelhof Neerpelt
  • Thanks to: Metropolis, Oleg Koefoed, By & Havn, Refshaleøens Ejendomsselskab, In Situ / Creative Europe, The Dutch Performing Arts Fund
  • References and inspiration: Rachel Carson, Andreas Malm, Ed Yong, T.S. Eliot, Donna Haraway, Emanuele Coccia, James Joyce and many more…
Two walkers looking out over the landscape at Refshaleøen
The GPS route of Living Matters drawn over a satellite map of Refshaleøen
A robin painted on a concrete block, dandelions growing at its foot
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