In this fourth session of the Eco-Arts Forum series, artist Asad Raza joined host Kristine Roome to share updates on his ongoing project River Ear, a public artwork and ecological intervention commissioned by the Contemporary Art Society (UK). This session built on earlier conversations tracking the development of the project from its inception through early design phases and thematic evolution. Raza reflected on recent exhibitions including Immortal Coil, a participatory work created for Frieze New York and High Line Art, in which visitors adopted living plants and walked the High Line together—a gesture that underscored his interest in artworks that generate connection and ecological continuity. The conversation also touched on Raza’s earlier work Diversion, which was recently recognized by Artnet as one of the top 100 exhibitions of the 21st century.
A significant portion of the session focused on River Ear’s design progress and ecological ambitions. Raza described efforts to rewild a section of the River Granta through brushwood ledges and tree hinging, alongside the development of a small, biodegradable sound pavilion designed to amplify the voice of the river. He emphasized the project’s long-term vision as a site for community interaction, school engagement, and ongoing environmental research. The conversation also delved into a scientific aspect of the project: a recent collaboration with microbiologists using environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis to identify river life. This process revealed unknown genetic sequences, inspiring Raza to create Unknown Life Form, a book composed entirely of one such DNA string. The book was recently exhibited in a project curated by poet Claudia Rankine.
Raza described River Ear not as a static sculpture but as a “mini-institution”—a platform for sustained engagement, knowledge production, and ecological transformation. Plans for public accessibility, educational partnerships, and annual wildlife surveys were also discussed, along with the challenges of securing planning permission for the site within Granta Park, a gated biotech campus. Pending approvals, the project is expected to begin ecological work in spring 2026, with a formal public launch anticipated in June of that year.
Watch the full conversation and explore the transcript below to learn more about River Ear and Raza’s broader vision for art, ecology, and public life.
Transcript
Kristine Roome: Hello and welcome. I am Kristine Roome. I am the host of the Eco-Arts Forum for the Ecological Design Collective. It is Tuesday, June 10, 2025, and we are here once again—the fourth installment of our conversation series with Asad Raza as we journey along with him towards the creation of a public art installation on the River Granta, in Cambridgeshire.
The work was commissioned by the Contemporary Art Society in the UK. We first met Asad in August 2024. He was in Barcelona, preparing for his exhibition installation called Prehension, which was part of the Manifesta Biennale. It was at that point that you told us about this commission.
That piece was in a former power plant, which opened up the power plant to the winds of the Mediterranean. We talked a little bit about your work, how you incorporate the different natural elements—wind, sun, and soil—and the performative parts of some of your works where individuals interact with the works. Then we followed up again in December of last year.
At that point, you had an exhibition in a magazine, Peanut Magazine, which I will show some images of in a second. We got some updates again on the River Ear project. We met a few months ago in February of this year, and we had invited guests Andreas Bondock and Daniel Knight, who viewed your work through a Michel Serres lens. And here we are again. So welcome back, Asad—nice to see you.
Asad Raza: Thank you.
Kristine Roome: I am going to share my screen here for a moment so we can see the slideshow. Okay, there we go. We can see a little bit of the works that we were just talking about. I can no longer see you on my screen. Can you all see the slideshow?
Asad Raza: Not yet.
Kristine Roome: Okay, one second. Let me try again. There we go. Is that better?
Asad Raza: Yes, that is good.
Kristine Roome: Okay, very good. All right. So here are some images that we have talked about here. This is the image from Manifesta Prehension. This is the work here—the exhibition in a magazine called Array. I also wanted to congratulate you. I do not know if we talked about it last time, but your work Diversion was named one of the top 100 exhibitions of the 21st century.
Asad Raza: Nice. Yes, that is nice. It is good to know that people are kind of paying attention to things that you do. Of course, these things are very arbitrary in some sense. There are probably many works where you feel, “Oh, that should have been in there,” or others where you think, “Well, that should be in a different position on the list.” But still, it is a nice recognition.
Kristine Roome: What do you think it was about it that made it so important?
Asad Raza: Good question. I think—well, it is a very simple piece. One reason might be that it is simply a diversion of a stream of the river from the river through the gallery and then back to the river. It was done in a place called Portikus, in Frankfurt, where the river flows right next to you, and it is very easy for people to grasp what is happening.
They can walk in the water. There were two things I think helped also: you could walk in the water, and, secondly, in the lower gallery, you could drink glasses of the water that had been filtered and boiled. I think those two things gave people a very strong experience. Families could come in, and their kids could splash around. There was an ability to engage with it.
Obviously, the ecological status of the planet is very much on people’s minds, and something that allows you to engage with or interact with a natural element directly—maybe that is of interest to people. I do not know. You would have to ask the editors of Artnet what they were thinking.
Kristine Roome: Yes, I see it as an early precedent to the work that we have been following along with as well, with the River Granta. And we will come back and talk about that a little more. Just briefly, I want to talk about this book that just came out. This is a work that you have been involved in for a while. Could you tell us a little bit about this project?
Asad Raza: Sure. The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish was—or is—a series of symposia or gatherings organized by two curators: Lucia Pietroiusti, who is at Serpentine in London, and Filipa Ramos, who is a curator doing the LOOP Barcelona Film Festival, as well as teaching in Basel and doing many shows around the world as an independent curator. The two of them are kind of a dynamic duo who have been putting these and another one in which I tried to make soil in my kitchen with my daughter—for the first event, or for the one they did in 2020. Now this book has come out, and I have a contribution—or a couple of contributions—in it.
We did a kind of launch event in this very interesting place called Ewerk Luckenwalde, which is an exhibition space outside of Berlin. It is in a working power station, which was a disused power station reactivated by the two people who started it, Helen Turner and Pablo Wendland. They are running it and funding their art program partially through selling power from sustainable wood that can be gathered and used to run this facility, which used to run on coal.
It is a fascinating place, and an interesting location for us to hold that event launching the book. It was nice to be a part of it.
Kristine Roome: Yes, I want to jump ahead a little bit to this recent work of yours that I had the pleasure of participating in. You were commissioned by Frieze in New York City—the Frieze Art Fair—to do a work called Immortal Coil. Can you tell us a little bit about this work and how you conceived of it?
Asad Raza: Well, it was originally co-commissioned by Frieze New York and High Line Art. I had the idea of getting people onto the High Line and experiencing maybe a different aspect of it.
I mean, people definitely notice it—it is very beautifully done, so I am sure they do notice it normally—but I liked the idea of engaging with the planting, which was designed by Piet Oudolf. It is maintained by a horticulturist named Richard Hayden.
So I had this idea of collecting seedlings from different plants along the High Line, which are what you see here. We put them on display during the week of the art fair, and then on Saturday, we gave all the seedlings to people who wanted one. We walked the length of the High Line with them, and people were allowed to take the plants home and keep them.
Again, I like this idea of an artwork that produces another thing—in this case, a lot of different plants growing in different people’s apartments, backyards, windowsills, etc. I also like that aspect of giving things away, which I originally experienced through Félix González-Torres’s work, as something that can reach people in an interesting way—something you get to take with you.
It was a nice day. It turned out to be a beautiful but kind of windy day when we actually did the walk, and I think we had maybe a couple hundred people there at the beginning. It was nice to see all these people walking with the seedlings. I noticed the people walking in the other direction being very curious about what was going on, because they were watching all these plants moving up the High Line. They kind of matched in a funny way—the planting was mirrored by these people in a way that was visually maybe kind of interesting. I enjoyed being there.
It is quite difficult to deal with the context of an art fair because it is a place where buying and selling art is happening. It is not easy. They try to produce white cube-like spaces, as we were talking about just before we started today with my call. But of course, it is not so easy. There is a massive amount of foot traffic and energy, and people are distracted because it is a place of networking, meeting, and transacting. In some ways, this was out of step with what else was happening there—in a way that maybe was not such a bad thing.
Kristine Roome: No, it was really almost a joyous event. You said it was small, but there were several hundred people there, and it was really sweet. You had all these plants outside. You saw the installation inside at first, and then from the beginning, people really cared. They were trying to decide what plant to choose and make the right selection.
You had a choice of plants and trees—small, medium, and large. I watched some of the visitors asking, “What is this?” and “What is that?” and you had people explaining what they were and where they came from. From the beginning, even the choices people made—and then the idea that it was just free—
Asad Raza: Right. As you are saying, it was so antithetical to the idea of the art fair. It was just free, and you could just take it home.
Kristine Roome: So it was really a joyous event. We see here one of your collaborators—someone else who spoke at the event. Can you tell us a little bit about who this person is?
Asad Raza: Yes. I had the idea that Zoë Schlanger, who you can see in the picture, who wrote a very interesting book about plants called The Light Eaters—also a beautiful title—could give a talk at the beginning about the plants. And she did. It was a very windy moment, so it was not that easy to hear it. But I am actually about to ask everyone who was taking part. I should also mention that I had another collaborator who made some music for the plants, which they were listening to because it was playing during the actual fair, while the plants were sitting inside.
The music was done by Kelsey Lu, who is a composer, cellist, singer, and musician. They are someone I really like as a person and as a musician. So when I asked them to do music for the plants, it was great that Lu accepted and did a beautiful job.
We are also going to send, in this same email that I would like Frieze to send out—which we have discussed—the text of Zoë’s speech as well as a link to the music that Lu composed, so that the people who have the plants now can both read Zoë’s talk and also play the music to the plants again at home.
I am glad to hear your reaction. I do think that in art, you often get more acclaim for making something very dark or something that affects people strongly—through fear, critique of the existing world, or grief about the state of things. Which is fine—many works I love are doing that. But I think there is also space for works that point forward in a different way.
Some of my works do that. Maybe it is a slightly embarrassing emotion to think about—joyous—but I actually think it is a very nice thing that you said. In my opinion, it is very positive. If you can touch someone in that way, that is something not to be sneezed at.
I see that Michael is writing here—asking if I follow up on the afterlife of the plants now that they have moved on. Normally, in projects I have done, I have not done much follow-up of that kind. But it is funny that you say it, because I did ask Frieze—oh, this is a couple of nice images—I did ask Frieze to, when sending out this email (they have to send it, because they cannot hand over those emails to me), to include Zoë’s text, Lu’s music, a link to the music, and a request for people to let us know what happened. Where is their plant right now? I am looking forward to that.
Kristine Roome: I feel like I should go get mine and bring it online. But it was sweet, because it was joyous. It was alsowalking down the High Line, everyone was very protective of their plants. They were holding them up to the sun. Some had even named them. It was a chance to say goodbye to their family and friends, right?
Asad Raza: Yes, that is it. That was the intent. That was the original thought I had when imagining the walk. I did not witness all of that necessarily, because I was bringing up the rear after handing out more plants. But that sounds great. I am glad to hear that those were the kinds of emotions or impressions people were getting. I do think that matters.
Kristine Roome: And to your point—it is one of the things that art can do. A typical walk along the High Line is already a special experience. It runs over and above some of the art galleries. But there are signs that say, “Do not touch,” “Do not enter,” “Do not take.” And here you are, allowing us all to take a bit of that home with us.
Asad Raza: Yes. You know, I think that is what hit me at MoMA when I was 15 years old. It was my first trip, kind of as an adult—or whatever—my first post-childhood trip to New York City. I went to the Museum of Modern Art, and there was a stack of posters by Félix González-Torres. You were allowed to take one. I took one, and I had it in my bedroom in Buffalo.
It really struck me at that time, because the aura of the museum and of the art world is that of sacred objects. And then here is this one artist who is going to make a stack of posters—and you can have one. That really affected me.
So I always like to try… and I think the credit, in a way, belongs to Félix González-Torres. You know, Hans Ulrich Obrist has made a series of shows called Take Me (I’m Yours), which he has done in maybe 15 different cities, where all the works are like that—you can take those objects. I love that series of exhibitions. I have never been part of it, but I guess this is a work that could be an edition of that show.
Kristine Roome: Well, to Michael’s question—it was a little strange. Even after the event, I still had my plant. You really have to think about the fact that you have adopted this thing. I was in New York, and I put it—him, her, it—in my bag to other exhibitions, and I was very conscious of it being. But what you are saying about how exhibitions feel the need to be profound or dark—post-apocalyptic—there are other ways. I think you are showing us a way of looking forward. The Light Eaters talks about plant intelligence and things that we had not really considered.
I think they are taking on some of the same topics, but in a different way. We are consciously thinking about how to take such a complex topic and make it a seemingly simple gesture.
Plants, right?
Asad Raza: Yes, I think that over time, working on exhibitions, I can say my exhibitions and my projects—my works—have become simpler.
Not necessarily through a conscious decision like, “Let me keep making everything simpler,” but it seems to just be a progression. It gets back to—well, I have a friend, Manthia Diawara, a filmmaker from Mali who is also a literature scholar. He has a friend, David Hammons, who is a great artist. Monty has told me several times a couple of David’s credos or mottos. One of them is “dumb it down.” Another is, “do not think—do not overthink it.”
These are not exactly earth-shattering ideas, but I think in both cases they are quite correct. It is harder to do a simple thing in a way—to figure out how to make a simple thing—than to do a complicated thing. For students, it is much easier to write a bunch of extremely complex sentences that are difficult to understand. It is harder to write a short, simple sentence that is still somehow interesting.
As for overthinking, I think that is something one very easily does these days.
It is hard to say. I know it happened slowly. My works seem to have become simpler because I noticed that by leaving out elements that might be extraneous—or ones I am not one hundred percent sure are needed—you bring the focus more strongly to certain things that are part of the interest in that particular project.
So, some of the images you showed—whether it was Prehension, or Diversion, or this thing with Immortal Coil—I felt like that was part of the process.
Kristine Roome: It is not dumb. I do not think it is dumbed down in any way. I think the simplicity of the gesture is beautiful, but it is no less complex.
Artists who talk about what is life, what is individuality, and forms of consciousness—I think all of that is embodied in Immortal Coil, right?
Asad Raza: Yes. Ideally, one has done some thinking. I think with Hammons—Monty is a very brilliant guy—so I do not think there was ever a danger of it being stupid. I do not think Hammons was saying that. The idea of “dumbing it down,” in a way I like, is about finding a way to make it simple. And then it might be more able to impact people.
Kristine Roome: I think that is one of the things I really appreciate in your work. You allow us in. You do not try to obfuscate with all sorts of references that keep people outside the conversation. I find your work inviting. You do not have to have read Whitehead to understand Prehension—or read all these thinkers.
Asad Raza: If you do understand Whitehead very well, then I want to talk to you—by the way, people who are listening to this.
Kristine Roome: No. And I’m not saying, Yeah, I agree with that. Everybody in right? Yeah.
Asad Raza: I do think there is a value to that. Some of the work, particularly the shows I worked on with Tino Sehgal, really highlighted the value of creating interactions between people—something Tino is truly amazing at. I believe there is something important in bringing the social fabric of what is happening into the picture—taking account of it, attempting to produce that socially engaged dynamic in a specific way, rather than leaving it out altogether.
That is what feels a bit tricky for me when I look at the art world right now—especially since I was in New York at the fair we just talked about. I feel like some of those intersubjective elements are falling away in parts of the art world, and it is reverting to a place focused on trading objects in a way that is less interesting to me. But that could just be my own issue. Anyhow, I suppose we had better talk about River Ear while Michael is still with us.
Kristine Roome: Yes, let us keep going. So here we are. Can you give us a few updates about where we were? We spoke a little bit and watched the design grow and change a bit. Tell us where your thinking is now about the work.
Asad Raza: I cannot quite remember what the latest developments were last time. But if you back up a couple of slides, Kristine—to that large image—yes, here. Over time, I have started to feel that the project is not just about creating the pavilion structure on the river. It is also about the work we are doing to the river itself.
You see these three shapes in the river? They are going to be brushwood ledges. What those will do is create a much more pronounced meander in the river than currently exists. Interestingly, we designed that meander over the last few months, because I have been in the river quite a bit lately. When you get into the river, you can see and feel the flow much better, and it has a natural meander that it seems to want to follow. That is why we are placing the brushwood ledges in that way.
Those ledges will also increase the sound of the river significantly, by restoring a dynamic flow and shape. That sound is what we will pick up in the pavilion, which we have also made quite a bit more progress on in terms of detailed design. If you move forward in the presentation, the first part shows the river rewilding and the restoration of its meander.
Also, stay here for one second, Kristine. We are going to do something called “tree hinging,” where we allow trees to grow sideways into the water. This will produce more timber and disruption in the flow, which in turn creates more habitats for wildlife. It mimics what happens naturally when trees partially fall into the water. It also restricts access to the riverbank for dogs and people, which helps prevent destabilization of the banks.
We have developed a series of strategies with our collaborators to produce a wilder and more sonically rich river. So it is not just about placing a pavilion in front of the landscape and walking away.
Leaving it alone is not an option, because the state it is in now is not necessarily natural in any meaningful way. So the project is moving further toward thinking about this whole region as part of the work. It is not just about building something and placing it in the landscape—it is also about shaping the river itself.
Kristine Roome: That is an interesting development that we had not talked about before. A little bit, you know, what sound does water make? It is interesting that you are doing interventions that increase the sound.
Asad Raza: Yes, it makes a big difference. And it is not only about increasing the sound, but also about biodiversity, activity, and the presence of wildlife. That has been really interesting. In addition to that, we had an interesting set of developments with the river itself. If you move forward in the presentation, you will see the brushwood ledges I mentioned. These are Photoshop renderings, but they give an idea of what we are going to do.
By cutting more trees on the banks—and stop here for a moment, Kristine—we will allow a lot more natural light in, which is good for aquatic life. Then we will create a series of plantings on those ledges, effectively creating new land. That land will support ecological restoration and increase sonic complexity.
If you move forward again, you will see more recent and detailed images of the pavilion design. One change we are considering is introducing a slight twist in the neck of the structure, so you do not see straight through it from the front. Instead, you would need to turn a bit, which adds to the experience.
Looking at these images gives a good sense of the scale. It should be large enough to host a small class. I am very excited about continuing to develop those elements.
Kristine Roome: Last time we spoke, you mentioned the materials of the design. Has that changed at all?
Asad Raza: It has, because we keep researching materials that seem promising but turn out to be unworkable. Over the last few months, we have explored thatch, lime render, copper, and willow. Slowly, we are refining it and getting closer to a solution that meets one of our key goals: we want the structure to be able to degrade back into the landscape.
Right now, we are looking at using stone, wooden shingles connected in a frame, and a polished wood interior surface to improve acoustic resonance. That is the current state of the design, though it may still evolve.
The process has been fascinating. There are so many complexities. We are in a flood zone, so the materials must be able to withstand specific conditions. At the same time, we do not want to use cast concrete or non-sustainable materials, but we do need good acoustic fidelity.
One person I spoke with—one of the principals of an architectural firm called Material Cultures—pointed out how difficult it is to balance these three very different requirements: acoustics, sustainability, and environmental resilience. Acoustic demands might push you toward heavy, polished concrete. Sustainability points toward biodegradable, low-impact materials. And floodplain building calls for structural durability.
In a riverside setting with a flood zone, many materials can decay or wash away. So the structural solution often leans toward something like a hollow metal frame. All of this is part of what we are working through in this design process. I have been enjoying it quite a lot.
Kristine Roome: Actual longevity is your challenge. You are supposed to be making a permanent installation, but you are using biodegradable materials. So eventually…
Asad Raza: Yes, the idea is that it will need maintenance. I am only spending about two-thirds of the construction budget on the build itself, leaving a third for maintenance for at least ten or fifteen years. Ideally, it would last fifteen or even twenty years. If people still want it then, we will figure out how to maintain it. But if not, it will simply decay back into the landscape. That is how it can be both a permanent and an impermanent work at the same time.
Kristine Roome: Got some…
Asad Raza: Go ahead. Sorry.
Kristine Roome: I am going to ask you to unmute, and also—
Asad Raza: Oh, is there a question?
Kristine Roome: I see.
Asad Raza: Michael says, “wattle and daub,” a medieval technique familiar in the Cambridge region. Yes, that is one of the things we were looking at. The issue, though, is the sound—the acoustic quality. I am waiting to hear back from Raf Orlowski, our sound and acoustic engineer, for his opinion on the current idea.
Wattle and daub could be interesting if Raf believes it will work acoustically. However, it could be tricky to shape it into the specific form we want. But yes, it is still in the running, let us say.
Sorry—I lost the Zoom window—here it is.
Let me quickly update you on the scientific side of things, since it is already 12:40.
We eventually got the environmental DNA (eDNA) results from the water. Two microbiologists working with Illumina, one of the companies at Granta Park, helped with that. It has been very exciting. We discovered many different organisms in the sample taken last March.
Kristine Roome: What are you doing exactly—taking water samples and testing the DNA to identify what?
Asad Raza: Yes. Inside the river water is a lot of DNA. When an animal is in the river, its cells also end up in the water—say, a fish. Some of that fish’s cells will be in the water. When you sequence the DNA, you get large amounts of it from many organisms.
Kristine, if you could go back to slide 32 or 33—when you sequence that DNA, you find a variety of sources.
What I found particularly interesting was that we identified several stretches—four or six sequences—that are not recognized by any known databases of organisms.
Kristine Roome: That you can compare your DNA sample to—what does it say?
Asad Raza: Mark Dumont, one of the microbiologists we work with, told me that these sequences represent unknown life forms—probably bacteria—but unknown to science. If you move forward one slide, you will see an image of one of those DNA samples. As you know, DNA is made up of the four letters A, G, C, and T—a long string of them.
I made a hardcover book out of one of these organisms and titled it Unknown Life Form, because I was fascinated that we had sequenced the DNA of something unknown to science within our project. The book is 460 pages long in large hardcover format, and it is currently on display in an exhibition curated by Claudia Rankine, the poet. She had invited artists and poets to contribute a book that “brings a person to you.” I said to her, “I have an idea for a book that brings a life form—not a person—but a living being that is not yet known to science, in book form.” She agreed, and we did it.
At a recent event for that exhibition, Claudia asked participants to read from their books for five minutes. I read aloud five minutes of DNA code—A, C, C, G, T, C, G, A, C, C. It felt like a dadaist experience—just letters, and the audience watching, trying to make sense of it. But for me, it began to feel like I was reading from the book of life. These sequences are, in their own way, as meaningful as any linguistic communication—just meaningful in a very different way.
I enjoyed the reading. And this moment also felt like a turning point for the River Ear project. I always envisioned it as a kind of mini-institution that would continue to produce outputs. With this book, it felt like River Ear had released its first publication.
Now I am working with a microbiologist to study those sequences further. We are trying to understand what they are coding for—what the metabolic functions of this unknown organism might be. So we are beginning to learn what this being is doing at a genetic level, even if we still do not know exactly what it is.
Kristine Roome: Poetic. I love the fact that someone like Claudia Rankine would—well, I am sure she appreciated the poetry of it.
Asad Raza: I hope so. Claudia is a great lover of language, and I do not think anyone else submitted something quite like that. So maybe it was interesting for her. Personally, and as a poet, I really admire her. It was wonderful to be part of her exhibition. If you move forward one slide—oh, you already did.
Kristine Roome: To the fields.
Asad Raza: Yes, I just wanted to bring this up because we have a steering group at the River Granta. We had a meeting recently, and two of the members are actually children, ages 10 and 8—Freddie and Flo. Their grandmother Jill is also a member; she used to be a head teacher at the local school, which you see in the image.
It was fun to have them there and show them the current design progress. Freddie asked some very thoughtful questions, like “What will happen if this is abandoned? Will it be biodegradable?” and “When can we visit it?” Because the site is located in Granta Park, which is not open to the general public.
I would like to establish several events each year—an annual day and other moments—when the public can come and spend time there. I would also like to make it available by appointment since it is not in a fully public location.
Kristine Roome: Can you say more about that? It is a big biotech park. Are you saying that members of the local community cannot access the river?
Asad Raza: If people are inside the biotech park, they can easily reach the pavilion. They can also walk to it from the other side of the river. But Granta Park is a gated area, so it is not like walking down a regular public street. That is why I want to create open events during the year where the public is fully welcomed and engaged.
One of the things we can do annually is resample the DNA and conduct wildlife surveys to see whether our ecological interventions are making a measurable impact. I hope students from Great Abington Elementary School can participate. That is why I have always envisioned the pavilion to be large enough for a small group of schoolchildren to use it as a classroom.
So yes, that is a good summary of where we are with the project. We are also planning an online presence where we can publish some of the data and ecological information we are collecting from the river.
Kristine Roome: You have really made progress since the last time we spoke. The design has advanced and is coming together. Is there a timeline for when this might actually be realized?
Asad Raza: The biggest unknown is planning permission. Michael will understand—it is not easy to get approval to build in the landscape, particularly in Cambridgeshire and the UK in general, which may be a good thing. We aim to submit all planning applications by September, which means the design, environmental documentation, and wildlife assessments must be finalized by then.
If that goes through by the end of the year or early next year, we plan to carry out the riverside ecological work in April or May, and hopefully hold a ceremonial opening in June.
Kristine Roome: Michael, do you have any questions?
Michael Prodger: I am intrigued by your sequencing, Asad. I am also thinking about the poetic component—how many words you could extract from those sequences. “Cat,” “hat,” and so on. That feels like something a poet would love to explore.
Asad Raza: Yes, I love that idea of making words out of the DNA. Of course, if you rearrange the letters, you lose the actual DNA meaning, but I still find the book itself fascinating to look at. Right now I only have one copy, but maybe we will make more. Perhaps one could be placed at Granta Park.
I also have the idea that as we continue working with the DNA from the river, it will lead to more creations. Everything is already, in a way, underway. I sometimes wonder about the tension between developing work you are already immersed in and starting completely new projects or exhibitions.
It is a balance. One should not just be constantly inventing new things but should also dig deeper into existing work. For me, River Ear is one of those long-term things we can keep developing. I have always said I do not want this to be just a case of designing and building a sculpture and then calling it finished. It should function more like an institution—a place that continues to produce knowledge, experiences, and perhaps even physical changes to the river.
Kristine, you did a very interesting book with Pierre Huyghe, whom we have mentioned before. I have been thinking about how River Ear might relate to his work in Norway. That is a project I have read about but never seen in person, where Pierre created an artwork that interacts continuously with a forest. That kind of ongoing engagement with an environment is something I find deeply compelling.
So yes, I see River Ear as an ongoing thing—something that can keep producing artworks, knowledge, experiences, and ecological enhancements over time.
Kristine Roome: We really appreciate you sharing your journey with us.
Asad Raza: Yes, this one actually felt more like a regular conversation. I hope it was interesting for you. I also really enjoy doing these because they give me a moment to reflect on the project. These moments are useful—they help clarify one’s thinking. So thank you both for being here.