Collective Resonance

In Begin Again, grief is not simply an affective state but an ecology – one that extends beyond the personal into the collective, beyond the human into the architectural and environmental. On a sculptural level, my work takes up residence within the infrastructural veins of Tate Modern, tapping into the building’s deeper architecture and resonating through its utility pipes as a series of seismic vibrations. The unpredictable and generative nature of the soundscape helps to form an immersive field of interconnection, blurring the boundaries between body and space, presence and absence, collapse and renewal.

This work is rooted in my ongoing exploration of how grief operates in multiple registers – personal, social, ecological – and how mourning can be reframed as an act of collective repair. The project asks: how might sonic and spatial interventions reconfigure an urban mode of mourning in the face of planetary collapse?

Ecological grief differs from personal loss in that its source is ongoing – species extinction, environmental degradation, and the precarity of our future render mourning an anticipatory state. Unlike other rites of passage, which allow for closure, this grief demands sustained engagement. Begin Again does not offer resolution but instead explores the potential of resonance, attunement and collective presence as ways to process loss. Sound flows through the space, momentarily binding disparate bodies together in an evolving experience of shared affect. The composition is based on an algorithm that oscillates between harmony and disintegration, echoing the cycles of collapse and renewal that define both ecological and emotional systems.

This work extends from my wider practice of engaging with the liminal – that is, states of transition, spaces of threshold and the in-between. My previous projects have explored how spaces can become sites of relationality, where grief and memory can be metabolised. At Tate Modern, this approach is amplified through architecture: the building itself is a former power station, an infrastructure of energy extraction and conversion, now repurposed into a space for aesthetic and social exchange. By integrat- ing recycled instruments and playback channels into its utilities, Begin Again proposes an inversion – can the same extractive logics that have shaped our ecological crisis be reimagined towards connectivity and renewal? The pipes, no longer just a tool for redirecting resources, become an interface – one that can be navigated differently, repurposed as a conduit for collective resonance and attunement.

Any genuine response to the crises of our time must take into account not just environmental factors but also the mental and social structures that underpin them. In this sense, Begin Again also operates as a site of social ecology. The accompanying support groups – held monthly – create spaces for shared listening, discussion and reflection. These gatherings respond to the increasing privatisation of grief and the diminishing spaces in which to collectively process loss. They take up the challenge of imagining new frameworks for ecological care, asking how we might develop practices that sustain both planetary and emotional resilience.

Ultimately, Begin Again is not just about loss but about the potential embedded within grief – the possibility of beginning again, of forging new attachments, of listening more deeply to the spaces we inhabit and the bodies we share them with. By attuning ourselves to the resonances within and around us, we might find ways to move forward – not through forgetting, but through recalibrating and reorienting our relationships to one another and to the world.

^{Begin Again is included in Gathering Ground, Tate Modern, until 4 January 2026. This collection exhibition highlights the connection between environmental and social justice, inviting visitors to reimagine their relationships with the natural world and each other. Come along to the Begin Again support group hosted by Abbas Zahedi on the first Saturday of each month.}

^{Abbas Zahedi is an artist based in London.}

^{Gathering Ground is supported by Mala Gaonkar and Tate Patrons. With additional support from Tate Members.}