Preludio de arrullo – Darién | Prelude to a Lullaby – Darién

Happiness lives in the shadow of sorrow—OM

The olfactory acoustic composition Prelude to a Lullaby—Darién is a work that exists at the crossroads between language and the senses. Participants are immersed in a yellow room with a 16-channel sound composition – a specially composed lullaby of insect sounds, an olfactory sculpture redolent of the rainforest they inhabit, and a series of scores for the piece, as a specific, contained space for them to pause and reflect using all of their senses.

The lullaby, also known as a cradle song, is one of the oldest, most intimate, and universal forms of human expression. It unites music, body, emotion, and tradition in an everyday yet deeply poetic act. Through lullabies, humanity sings to its children the promise of peaceful sleep, care, belonging, hope, and a happy tomorrow.

But lullabies are not only intended to lull children to sleep: they reflect a worldview and convey values, fears, symbols, and memories specific to each community. For Federico García Lorca, lullabies (as part of the folk song tradition) were one of the purest forms of oral poetry. He considered them a direct expression of the popular soul, blending tenderness, consolation, pain, and, sometimes, tragedy.

The artist’s thoughts for this work centre on the Darien Rainforest, also known as the Darien Gap: a natural border between Panama and Colombia, declared a World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve, and recognized as one of the most important biodiversity hotspots on the planet. But this place of exuberant natural life—home to thousands of animal and plant species—has recently become a passage of death or rebirth for thousands of migrants who cross it in search of hopeful happiness.

In the Guna language, "Darién" means "Sun of the Horizon" or "Setting Sun." It's time to sleep: time for a lullaby. This Darien lullaby is composed of the dominant sounds of the dense rainforest: a multitude of jungle insects, recorded by the artist throughout his decades-long career, and transformed here into an acousmatic composition that simultaneously highlights the realities of the place itself and the plight of the people seeking refuge and safe passage through it.

In the rainforest, communication is not only through sound but also through other chemical signals, so a universe of scents surrounds the lullaby, completing the exchange between plants and pollinators. The olfactory composition, created for this piece in collaboration with IFF perfumer Ricardo Moya, is sprayed on the curtains to distribute the smell within in the space. Smells travel directly to the parts of the brain responsible (among other things) for memory, emotion, and navigation, making the olfactory element a powerful component for fully immersing the participants in the work.

Within the warm and comforting yellow space, mono-frequency lights are used, which eliminate all wavelengths except yellow, provoking an involuntary neurological response that heightens the viewer's sensory perception. Music stands arranged in a group hold the scores: insect drawings, migration patterns, and sound fragments, which serve as a visual gateway to the composition.