Plant Attunement: Tartaruga Água

Plant Attunement is a sound installation for breathing beings, exploring the relationship between humans and plants. Although we rarely notice it, plants also “breathe”: microscopic pores in their leaves absorb oxygen for respiration and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. This exchange of gases is thought to have contributed to the atmosphere’s current oxygen levels—around 20 per cent—creating the conditions that sustain life on Earth. As an exercise in proximity, the work draws attention to the complementary nature of this exchange: while humans inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, plants perform the opposite process.

Created for the Galeria da Biodiversidade, the installation invites human and non-human beings to share a common soundscape, breathing together. This collaborative composition seeks to bring plants and people into a shared space of attention, encouraging a slower perception of time. Plant Attunement is also an invitation to attune our accelerated rhythms to the tempo of plant life through listening, engaging with the processes, realities, and temporalities of the vegetal world.

Photography: Dinis Santos