Multispecies piano

Multispecies piano at Dutch Design Week 2023 curated by Toren van Babel

Ongoing project
Exhibited October 2024 and October 2023 at the Fashion Tech Farm during Dutch Design Week
Curated by Toren van Babel: Iris Bekkers and Shams Hazim

Transformed into nutrition and habitat for various organisms by the removal of harmful materials and addition of specific plant species and nesting materials, Multispecies Piano invites you to critically reflect on the lifecycle of everyday objects in relation to the livability of our planet.

“Multispecies piano engages with themes of death, decay and multispecies living. Central to this work is an old piano, once designed for making music but no longer up to our musical standards. It’s transformed into a basis of new life: as nutrition and habitat for various organisms. Through a number of modifications, including the removal of harmful materials and the addition of specific plant species and nesting materials, an interplay is created between the dead material of the piano and the living micro-organisms, plants and animals that use it and become part of it.

Multispecies piano is created by Anneke ter Schure (Hoorn, 1990), and shaped by the reuse of materials at hand, her background in Biology, and the question: how can we move away from a focus on production and shift towards a focus on habitability and livability for other-than-humans?”

Photo’s by Iris Bekkers and myself

Multispecies piano has been in created in October 2023 and was exhibited as part of Dutch Design Week in 2023 and 2024. Changes in Multispecies Piano were recorded using a timelapse camera, taking a photo every hour. In 2024 this timelapse was on view during the exhibition.

Timelapse showing the changes in Multispecies Piano over one year