Matthew Lien 
2025 Longlist
Artist Bio
Sound artist Matthew Lien channels wilderness and culture to create immersive sculptural sound environments that advocate for environmental protection and cultural awareness. Raised in Canada’s Yukon, he combines field recordings and multi-channel audio to transport listeners into vast natural environments.
In 1995, his success in southeast Asia afforded access to larger audiences. At the Taoyuan Land Art Festival, Lien presented Surroundings X Embrace, a large-scale installation where people can experience the profound impact of soundscapes in a unique, contemplative space.
In Taiwan’s remote Kanting village, Lien recorded the traditional sounds of the Bunun people to create Consonance, a 16-channel sound sculpture. The immersive experience combines cultural depth and the power of sound to bridge people and nature. The first iteration of Consonance is on permanent display at Taiwan’s National Museum in Taitung.
Lien’s installations offer a transformative connection, engaging listeners through nature and culture, and the language of sound.
Artist Statement
I’ve always been driven by projects that inspire appreciation for life on Earth, and that serve communities through their messaging, the calibre of production and the quality of content.
My unique upbringing involved living half of every year in an urban centre rich in culture but void of nature, and the other half in Yukon’s wilderness. Having known true wilderness and while seeing how easily it can be lost, instilled in me a concern for the future which is reflected in my earliest creative works.
As an artist, I have collaborated extensively with Indigenous people in the Yukon and in southeast Asia. These immersive, interactive and accessible collaborations align with my interest in environmental sustainability and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
My works with environmental themes have at times dovetailed with campaigns to achieve change, and have contributed to the suspension of the Yukon government’s wolf kill program, the prevention of oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the permanent protection of the Yukon’s Peel River Watershed.
My focus on wilderness and culture seemed to resonate with the people of southeast Asia, where I found success in 1995 and soon began creating and collaborating with traditional and Indigenous artists. For example, the soundscapes created for my Surroundings x Embrace installation, include cultural sounds of Taiwan’s Indigenous groups.
The Bunun Indigenous people in the mountains of Taiwan possess unique vocalizing which their ancestors learned from swarming bees. This inspired the Consonance sound sculpture and I hope their message of harmony, mutual support and gratitude for nature – ever more poignant with bee populations in decline – will inspire listeners around the world.
Consonance
2016 / 2025 (revision of work in progress), Sound Art, 16 metre circumference, 6.5 metre diameter, suspended at 200 metres.
Show More
kän-sə-nəns [noun]: compatibility between actions; musical notes that are in harmony due to the relationship between their frequencies.
Consonance is a sound sculpture presenting 360° multi-channel sound by way of 16 specially-designed speakers configured within a 16 meter-round ring. The audio content is based on Pasibutbut, one of the world’s most mysterious and renowned ethnic music works performed by Taiwan’s Bunun Indigenous people in their traditional circle-singing style. Pasibutbut is a prayer giving thanks for the millet harvest, and this word can be translated into two parts: “pasi,” meaning “harmonious sharing,” and “butbut,” meaning “mutual support”.
Said to have been learned from the sound of swarming bees, Pasibutbut is typically performed by a group of Bunun men standing in a circle with linked arms. The music gradually drifts from a low, soft swarm of voices into powerful harmony with intervals of thirds, fourths, fifths, and then slides microtonally out of harmony as it ascends in and out of harmonic junctures over ten minutes. This music has captivated music scholars for its complex harmonic structure which defies notation.
Taiwan’s aboriginal music was gaining global appreciation during the early 20th century. In 1943, Japanese music scholars were sent to document a specific Bunun tribe from Taiwan’s Riranzan village in the mountains of Taitung County. The singers featured in Consonance are the direct descendants of those recorded in 1943 (published in the book/album Sounds from Wartime Taiwan 1943).
This interactive sound sculpture creates an audio experience which inspires tears in listeners, and greater understanding of indigenous culture and music through technology, sound and art. An updated iteration of Consonance is now in development for exhibiting in 2025.
The Kluane Compositions
2025 (work in progress), Film and sound
Show More
A 3-movement 10-minute film creation by Kluane First Nation singer-songwriter Diyet and myself, which involves airlifting a grand piano into three ecosystems of the Yukon’s Kluane National Park – home to Canada’s highest mountains (including the largest in the world by volume) and more glacial activity than any non-polar region. This is where Diyet and I grew up and its wilderness informs much of our artistic vision, making this collaboration deeply meaningful.
Using sound, music and imagery, the project tells a story – from mile-deep ice fields, to the glacial forefields, and finally to the forested front ranges – from two perspectives: the land itself, and the observer. There is an underlying story of Truth and Reconciliation interwoven throughout and underpinning each movement: the first encounter, the challenges and conflicts, and finally the resolution.
The project features sound design that involves the capture of – and then the application of – natural acoustic profiles digitally captured in reverberant spaces within Kluane Park. Used to affect Diyet’s voice, this is the first time that natural acoustic reverb from a First Nation’s traditional territory will be applied onto an Indigenous artist’s vocal who comes from that territory (thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting this aspect of the project).
The Kluane Compositions was awarded the $125,000 Yukon 125 grand prize by the Yukon government in celebration of the territory’s 125th anniversary.
Four Corners
2020, Sound art accompanying mural, 8 metres (l) x 12 metres (h) (spanning 4 storeys)
Show More
The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) Health Sciences Centre (HSC) is one of the largest health science education centres in North America. The Four-Corners mural and sound canvas features four floors of visual and audio facades. The project which was commissioned by BCIT, captures the connection between nature and the city, and moves users from earthy terracotta hues and sonic tones on the first floor, transitioning to blue sky and aerial sounds on the fourth floor.
Each of the four floors features 8 discreet channels of sound designed to correspond with each section of the mural.
My roles in Four Corners were audio concept creator, sound designer, and spatial programmer, to enhance the four-storey mural created by Chase Gray, a Musqueam and Tsimshian artist.
The immersive canvas of sound features sonic elements that move seamlessly throughout the space, because each floor opens onto an atrium allowing sound from the floors above and below to be heard from any location.
Surroundings X Embrace
2017, Sound art / sound sculpture, 12 metres (w) x 9 metres (h) / 2 metres (diameter) x 3 metres (h)
Show More
Commissioned by the Taoyuan County Government of Taiwan, the large bamboo-covered dome features 24 discreet channels of audio across 4 levels, presenting the fully immersive sound of four ecosystems; three being natural/Indigenous, and one being a city soundscape. The intention is that, over 20 minutes, the listener experiences each sonic environment and assesses which feels comforting and which does not, to hopefully question why people choose to live within their soundscape.
Embrace features two identical vertical cylinders with a smooth wooden surface, housing a powerful subwoofer which presents the subsonic sound of a heartbeat. The sound cannot be heard as its frequencies are below the range of human hearing, but it can be felt when the sound sculpture is embraced. This tree-hugging experience brings a sense of well-being, especially due to the slower pulse which mimics the heart rate of a healthy person at rest.
Jing 3D Eco-Space
2018, Sound art accompanying 3D film, Theatre space 5 metres (d) x 7 metres (w) x 3 metres (h)
Show More
Commissioned by Jing Wellness in Taiwan, the installation features 3D projection of scenic natural environments with synchronized multichannel sound presented on several elevations and locations within the space (including ground-level speakers), to fully immerse the audience.
Most people experiencing this multimedia installation live in noisy and hectic urban environments. The intention of this installation is to relieve and restore a sense of well-being through sights and sounds of natural environments.