Over 600 million birds have vanished from Europe since the 1980s — due to habitat loss, climate collapse, pesticide use, and the disappearance of 400,000 tonnes of insect life.

Using ten second-hand radios from eBay, a hacked FM transmitter, and samples of the 15 most endangered birds, artists created an artwork called Silent Spring — a looping broadcast of absence, playing from an infinite auto-reverse cassette deck.

A requiem for the birds. A warning for us all.

This project is part of the Creative Europe Cooperation Project “SPACE: Sustainable Production for Artistic Communities in Europe”. The SPACE project partners are cultural organisation Ascendum (LV), creative agency Kemmler Kemmler (DE), art space in the wild SAVVAĻA (LV) and residencies organizer Wild Bits at Maajaam (EE).

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Andrew Melchior and Iris Voss are pioneering artists exploring the fusion of sound, technology, and perception. Melchior, the first VR artist exhibited at MoMA NY, combines spatial audio, analogue media, and deep-space phenomena—most notably incorporating real Fast Radio Bursts into his work. Iris Voss, a classically trained violinist and audiovisual artist, merges modular synthesis with visual storytelling to investigate how sound transforms human experience. Together, their practices push the boundaries of contemporary art, where science, sound, and the digital realm converge.