echolalia

The National Gallery of Iceland presents an exhibition of Björk, the visionary musician whose work keeps pushing conventional boundaries, interweaving art, nature, and technology with restless experimentation.

Three songs are presented at the museum on a theatrical scale for the first time – two elegiac works – Ancestress and Sorrowful Soil – composed and arranged by Björk in honour of her mother, are accompanied by a new work derived from the artist’s forthcoming album.

Ancestress reckons with the cyclical nature of life. Set in a remote valley in Iceland, the lamentation is staged as a ritualistic procession of musicians and dancers. 

Sorrowful Soil is a 9-part choral work – a requiem where canon-like melodies tumble amongst 3 groups of singers in a polychoral way. Thirty speakers each transmit a single voice from the Hamrahlíð choir, conducted by Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir. 
The exhibition is presented alongside Metamorphlings, an exhibition of James Merry, Björk's long time collaborator, in Gallery 4.