Suena Serenades The Earth In Mexican Ancient Wetlands

By Tansy Kaschak on 02.22.23

“We wanted to serenade the Earth as our highest muse, lover, mother, and inspiration,” said Alexa Gantous, founder of Suena, to a group of 65 people gathered for breakfast at a ‘chinampa‘ in the Xochimilco canals, the last remnants of the vast water transport and agricultural system built by the Aztecs in ancient Mexico City — or Tenochtitlán, as it was called then.

Although only 30 minutes from the densely populated city that today counts more than 26 million people, Xochimilco is a testament to the impact of modern civilization on a unique and fragile ecosystem. Before the arrival of Spanish conquistadores, Mexico City was built over a lake by its indigenous civilization who dominated life on water and engineered a complex and biodiverse living and farming system.

Born from a desire to pay homage to what gives us life, Suena is a non-profit creating a musical symbiosis inspired by and in collaboration with nature’s sounds. “‘Enchanted lands’ are lands that have been chanted to. How beautiful and radical to sing to the Earth. To tune into the water and the air. To remember our own nature through the subtle and through beauty,” explains Alexa about her motivations for developing the project.

Working with Splice, a cloud-based global library of music, they create sonic maps of natural ecosystems and design location-specific experiences alongside award-winning musicians, chefs, and local conservation initiatives. Each event is one-of-a-kind and an invitation to deepen our understanding of a place through sound.

For its first edition at Xochimilco on February 5th, as the moon set and the sun rose over the canals, prolific Mexican composer and multi-instrumentalist Leonardo Heiblum, who previously worked with Phillip Glass, appeared as if by magic, leading a group of Son Jarocho (a Mexican traditional music genre deeply rooted in farming culture and that uses water and the wind to tune its instruments) in a floating concert giving voice to this ecosystem and raising awareness of its fragility.

The hundreds of nature sounds that Leonardo wove into their live performance were previously recorded and documented both above the surface of the water and below, ranging from the underwater hydroponics to the various animals that occupy the space and the working sounds of the chinampa farmers.

Chinampa, the name of the technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture, which relies on small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake, are human-made agricultural farmlands that have an incredible climate resilient capacity, as they can both capture and preserve water while being flood and drought resistant.

After the sunrise concert, a culinary experience and farm tour took place in Arca Tierra, a chinampa farm that provides produce for many renowned Mexico City restaurants, including the world-famous Pujol, and around 450 boxes for domestic consumption monthly. The breakfast was created by the women-led collective Colectivo Amasijo, who has designed a menu that captures the soundscapes of Xochimilco on our plates and invites a deeper reflection about what it means to listen to nature.

Suena’s upcoming concert series will take place at Río Magdalena, the last live river of the metropolis; Iztaccíhuatl, the mythical volcano known as “the sleeping woman” and the third highest peak in Mexico; and Popocatepetl, an active volcano known as “smoking mountain,” the mythical lover of Iztaccíhuatl and the second highest peak in Mexico. Follow Suena on Instagram for more information on how to participate.

Images by Beto Garcia and Zachary Lynd

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