Hans Rosenström fills Louis Kahn's Four Freedoms Park with choral sound installation

Hans Rosenström's site-specific sound installation Out of Silence opens at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park on Roosevelt Island, New York, from April 29 to June 21, 2026. Commissioned by the Four Freedoms Park Conservancy, the work features meditative choral sounds inspired by composer Arvo Pärt's 90th birthday. Created over a year with curator Alina Girshovich, it incorporates Vox Clamantis, the choir associated with Pärt. Rosenström developed a poetic script from observations of the park's light and shadows, which the choir improvised upon at the Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia. The 15-minute spatial journey uses a dozen hidden speakers, with voices emerging and dissolving. Howard Axel, CEO of the Conservancy, emphasized the commitment to free public contemporary art. The installation coincides with a growing focus on Finnish culture in New York, including a forthcoming solo exhibition at the International Studio & Curatorial Program. Rosenström, born 1978 in Lohja, Finland, and based in Stockholm, is known for site-specific sound works. He won the Finnish State Prize for Media Art in 2020.