A Synthetic Rainforest

Listening to the Bloedel Conservatory

Abstract

Synthetic Rainforest is a soundscape recording made within the Bloedel Conservatory, a tropical plant and bird sanctuary built in 1969 in Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples. The recording captures a displaced and mediated temporality—an impossible dawn chorus in which bird species from disparate geographies and ecosystems sing together under the dome’s enclosure. This sonic event mirrors the architectural logic of the Conservatory itself: a microcosm of globalization, enclosure, and simulation.