Björk : "After plagues and pandemics there will be new modes of existence."

Last October, a newly discovered butterfly species on the U.S. East Coast was named Pterourus bjorkae in homage to the Icelandic singer. Björk has always felt a deep sensitivity to the living world, shaped by the seismic forces of the land where she was born in 1965. Since the early 2010s, the avant-garde artist has delved into the interplay between nature and technology in her albums, notably Biophilia (2011), Vulnicura (2015), Utopia (2017), and most significantly, Fossora (2022). At the same time, she fervently advocates for environmental causes and biodiversity preservation, amplifying calls for ecological awareness. However, Björk does not believe in humanity's end. Rejecting the pessimistic vision of a post-apocalyptic future, she urges us to embrace an era of “post-optimism”—a resilient future where plants and humans would intertwine and evolve together.

In Nature Manifesto, an immersive sound installation created exclusively for the Centre Pompidou with artist and curator Aleph, Björk invites us to reconsider our role in preserving life on Earth. Resounding through the building's iconic exterior escalators, the piece combines Björk's voice reading a powerful manifesto with calls of extinct or endangered animals. This evocative mental landscape, produced in collaboration with the Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (Ircam) and AI models, immerses listeners in a soundscape of ecological urgency. Below is the full manifesto by Björk and Aleph.

Nature Manifesto
Björk & Aleph

« it is an emergency

the apocalypse has already happened

and how we will act now is essential

after the mass extinction
we will start anew
our old comfort is gone
we will parade with mutated crickets in glowing radio-active harvests

migrate with wildebeests
amongst endangered orangutans

a new world
with an emergence of assemblages

and rhizomatic entanglements

with the altered voice of a beluga
and a dna-morphed seal
we will settle in sound fields of mosquitoes

we will find sensory reci-procity
in all ecological connective tissues
in a pioneering sound-strata
of mutant peacocks, bees, and lemurs

biology will reassemble in new ways
and micro-organisms will mate with other life-forms to heal and adapt

in fruiting bodies
and fields of sensory information
the web of life will unfold into a world of new solutions
as basalt columns absorb carbon
or as a lyrebird becomes a chainsaw

life wins

with or without us

after plagues and pandemics
there will be new modes of existence
of weaving our bodies into relations with our surroundings

of decomposing our old ways of life
and escape the feedback loop

with metabolic ingenuity

the howl of our biological ancestry

repossessed by animal spirits

we remedy lost bird calls
out of niche-replacements

amongst a tapestry of beings

a new bio-diversity is reached

we will terraform the planet

in a deep morpho-genesis

from an animist volcanic island
we will revel at doppler-effect dolphins speeding by

unseen wonders blooming
hyphean enigmatic entities

the memory of our genes

will form a call to action

mold a new paris climate accord

this time reachable

reach

let's reach it » ◼