Sports Hall Window
A window display gallery at a sports hall

Dana Neilson
Nature Paths
2025

Text, video, audio, tint
Duration: 26:11 min
On view 6.7.–31.8.2025

Exhibition soundscape

For full exhibition experience listen with your own headphones


Nature Paths is an installation created site-specifically for Sports Hall Window by artist Dana Neilson. By collecting birth stories from friends, Neilson questions the common rushed and screaming birth scenario overused in mainstream media, offering alternative narratives in the form of personal accounts.

The installation invites viewers to reflect on who controls the stories we absorb through media and the subconscious fears that they can create. One aspect of the installation is the sound of a heartbeat – the first sound we all hear. This motif also nods to Neilson’s childhood, when her parents played her mother’s recorded heartbeat to soothe her during restless nights. Through audio, text and visuals Nature Paths offers a moment of stillness to contemplate alternative versions of birth.

Dana Neilson is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist based in Helsinki. Her practice includes multi-sensory installation, moving image and ceramics. Sound was created in collaboration with Tyler Fitzmaurice of Studio Coara.