12/09/2026
SUNDAY STORIES: THE ART OF DEATH
Each Sunday, we bring you another story, artwork, artist, or idea that helps us look at death a little differently.
This week, we're in Reykjavik, at the National Gallery of Iceland, exploring Björk. echolalia.
A crimson procession, descending into a valley to grieve.
A choir of thirty voices, each on its own speaker.
A volcano, still erupting, playing overhead like it's grieving too.
Björk built two of the exhibition's central pieces around the death of her mother, Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir, an environmental activist who died in 2018.
In Ancestress, filmed by Andrew Thomas Huang, Björk and her son Sindri Eldon lead a procession of masked, robed figures down into an Icelandic valley in ritual mourning. James Merry made the masks and ritual objects they carry.
In Sorrowful Soil, an oval room holds a nine part choral work written for her mother. Thirty speakers, each carrying a single voice from the Hamrahlíð Choir, surround the visitor while footage of the erupting Fagradalsfjall volcano drifts overhead. Alone, each voice is one person singing. Together, they become something closer to a body, breathing.
A third gallery previews Nerve Bloom, a new track from Björk's forthcoming album, still untitled. A fourth holds Metamorphlings, a retrospective of more than 80 masks by James Merry, worn over the years by Björk, Tilda Swinton and Iris van Herpen.
Of the exhibition, Björk has said she wanted “to merge old things with tech, to give them soul and a meaning.”
That could be a description of grief itself. Taking something old, something gone, and finding a new way to hold it.
The Art of Death isn't about making death beautiful or frightening.
It's about looking at it, even when it arrives wrapped in volcanic rock and thirty voices singing at once.
Björk. echolalia is on at the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik, until 20 September 2026.
What does art about death make you think about?
