Nikki Lindt. The Underground Sound Project. 2018-ongoing. Sound installation.

Nikki Lindt records the hidden acoustics of plants, soils, waters, precipitation, and trees in a long-running practice that forms The Underground Sound Project. Using specialized microphones, she captures the vibrations and voices of subterranean life, from deep rumblings of swaying trees to melodic patterns of swirling waters to the thud of a falling snowflake—revealing a continuous network of activity beneath our feet. These sounds are categorized by their sources and shared through an interactive soundwalk in Prospect Park, as well as an accessible virtual tour.

The work emphasizes the act of listening as a form of empathy, an attentive, non-extractive way of being with the world. In this way, it generates a kind of “soft data”: sensory, qualitative information that deepens our understanding through felt experience rather than numbers. By tuning into these unfamiliar tones, listeners are invited to imagine the perspectives of other living entities and the delicate systems they inhabit. Lindt’s practice offers a space for slowing down, noticing, and caring for what often goes unheard, acknowledging both the vitality and vulnerability of the underground, a space shaped by natural rhythms and altered by human intervention.