Brian Eno: In a Garden

I wanted to think of the music that I installed in the new pavilion as a sort of sonic garden – a concentrated park within the real park. – Brian Eno

For his contribution to Back to Earth, Brian Eno has composed a layered, stratified construction of sonic material, titled IN A GARDEN (2021) that moves through the Pavilion, from the earth beneath visitors’ feet to the space above their heads. He writes:

This piece started life two years ago as what I call ‘country music’. In my use of the phrase that doesn’t involve banjos and cowboys, but is intended to be a music that is an evocation of being in a landscape, in a place.

The Serpentine Gallery really is a place, and it’s in the middle of a park. I wanted to think of the music that I installed in the new pavilion as a sort of sonic garden – a concentrated park within the real park. A garden is a place in which all sorts of things are brought together, and interest is created by spacing and contrast and the unexpected unfolding of the planting as it develops.