Sep 9-13. Rumsbilder / Hans Rosenström (FI/SE)
Weld’s autumn season opens with two recent sound installations by Finnish artist Hans Rosenström. Over five days in September, Broken Chord and Tidal Tears will be presented – two works being shown in Stockholm for the first time.
Weld
Norrtullsgatan 7
Opening hours
September 9 from 3pm–10pm
September 10 from 3pm–10pm
September 11 from 3pm–10pm
September 12 from 3pm–10pm
September 13 from 12pm–3pm
The works are shown in sequence and restart every hour and half-hour.
Both Broken Chord (2025) and Tidal Tears (2025) take the human voice, its shifting nuances and character, as their point of departure. Experienced one after the other, the works form a changing spatial choreography of sound, light and presence.
In Broken Chord, first presented at Helsinki Contemporary and later at Atelier Nord as part of the Ultima Festival in Oslo, the voice emerges as something transcendent, moving in, through and between upright glass panels and the spectator. The voices create rhythms, words and melodies, temporary configurations that emerge only to soon fall apart again.
Tidal Tears, originally created for the Helsinki Biennial and specifically for a lush, green grove, is a choral work based on field recordings from the different layers of the forest, from the soil to the foliage. Here, the human voice is transformed into something guttural and animalistic, yet at times also harmonious, forming a landscape of sound. The voices intertwine into a breath-like pulse that gradually builds within the space.
Rumsbilder opens up moments of heightened sensitivity to our own relationship with our surroundings.
Read more about the works below
Broken Chord
Installation for 7 voices played through 7 glass panels pyrolytic solar control glass, transducer speakers and motion detector
Duration: 12’00’’ (variable)
Musical direction and co-compostion: Sophia Brous
Performed by: Eugène Blove, Sophia Brous, Alice Heyward, Gregor Kompar, Gabriella Liandu, Holden Madagame and Holly Sass.
Recording: Brewery Studios, Berlin
Post Production: EMS, Elektronmusikstudio, Stockholm
Sound mixing: Ville MJ Hyvönen, Helsinki
Broken Chord is a sound installation consisting of seven semi-reflective glass panels and recorded voices played through resonance speakers attached to the panels.
The glass acts as a conductor of sound, with each panel carrying one of the seven voices, which in turn gives the glass a body and presence. The voices appear both individually and in chorus, interacting with one another. The reflective glass captures both the surroundings and the visitors’ mirrored images, creating a fusion of reflections that blurs the boundaries between the self, other observers, and the space.
In the installation, the fleeting, organic nature of the voice contrasts with the sleek industrial glass façades. The glass forms a symbolic barrier between inner and outer worlds, while the voice threads bridges between them. Personal and public at once voices are an intimate instrument. As voices and language move between bodies, they shape our perception and relationship to the world around us.
As poetic as the voices can be seen, they also raise questions of power—whose voices
are heard, and how we ourselves listen.
Thank You: Helsinki Contemporary, Atelier Nord (Oslo), Ultima Festival (Oslo), The Finnish – Norwegian Cultural Institute (Oslo), Meriç Algun, Maria Bengtsson, Sophia Brous, Julia Giertz, Samuel Michaelsson, Maria Pulli, Sami Suihkonen, Pilvi Takala and Ellen Wettmark
Supported By: The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland and The Norwegian Cultural Fund
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Tidal Tears
Multi-channel sound and light installation
Duration 10:00 min
Performed by: Echo Vocal Ensamble
Collaborators: Echo Vocal Ensemble – voice and song, Guillaume Soula – field recordings, Maria Bengtsson – sound design
Recorded: Studio 7, London, UK
Postproduction: EMS Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm, Sweden
Tidal Tears is set in a small grove on Vallisaari Island created for the 3rd Helsinki Biennial. The installation combines petrified wood, running water, and a voice-based soundscape played from hidden speakers surrounding the site. The sound moves between abstract texture and song, by reinterpreting field recordings from forests; the voices trace different layers of an ecosystem, from the worms in the soil rising all the way up to the canopy before sinking back down to the ground. The work is as much a sensory experience as it is a quiet memorial, a contemplative site that attunes us to the subtle rhythms and unseen circulations of the living world.
Thank You: JJ Lems / Xyleia, Laurence Hussey / Studio 7, Sasu Rissanen / Goljat, Julia Giertz, Sophia Brous, Sami Suihkonen
Sampo Wiik
Commissioned by: HAM / Helsinki Biennial
Supported by: Tiftö Foundation
Hans Rosenström (b. 1978, Lohja, Finland)
lives and works in Stockholm. He studied at Malmö Art Academy and the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, where he received his MFA in 2007.
Rosenström’s practice centres on site-specific installations that bring together sound, language, architecture and light. His works create sensitive, nuanced environments where the boundaries between the fictive and the real become porous. Often involving the audience as part of the work.
His work has been shown internationally at institutions including Amos Rex, Helsinki; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Kindl Contemporary Art Center, Berlin; Portland Museum of Art; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. His works are held in collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Kiasma and EMMA. In 2020 he received the Finnish State Prize for Media Art.
Thanks to EMS for support
Weld is supported by the City of Stockholm, the Swedish Arts Council and Region Stockholm.