A Man Called Adam: Remember Nature @ Tate Modern

Music

Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones have been making records about the natural world since before it was the done thing… Music To Watch Seeds Grow By, we’re looking at you! 😉

Their Remember Nature project – a response to Gustav Metzger’s ecological provocation of the same name – has taken them from studio to field and back, the birds gradually moving from sample source to something more like collaborators.

Last November at MIMA, the duo staged Birdy – a five-hour audiovisual work that unfolded slowly across the pavilion and garden, inviting what the project calls “deep listening”: an interrogation of how birds adapt and co-exist within human-altered environments. Less performance, more sustained attention.

On 28 March they bring the project to Tate Modern as part of Gathering Ground, a free afternoon event marking the tenth anniversary of Metzger’s nationwide day of art action. Despite what the listing says, this isn’t a DJ set – it’s a live improvised electroacoustic performance, Rodgers and Jones working in real time with birdsong and electronics, treating avian sound not as texture or decoration but as the actual musical subject.

The wider event draws together Cornelia Parker, Anya Gallaccio, Hamish Fulton, Patricia Domínguez and Eduardo Navarro, among others, for readings, video and performance tied to the Metzger legacy. RSPB Youth Council members and Goldsmiths MA Arts & Ecology students are also involved — giving the afternoon an intergenerational quality that feels right for a project about what we’re handing on.

Free entry.

Tate Modern, 28 March.