This article was written by Julia Lohmann, Associate Professor in Contemporary Design at Aalto University. Julia is also a member of the TIDAL ArtS Consortium.  Connect with Julia on LinkedIn. 

Signe Lidén’s The Tidal Sense explores how tides shape not only our coastlines but also our understanding of time, place, and ecological change. Developed during her residency in Ramberg as part of the Tides residency program for LIAF (Lofoten International Art Festival) 2019, the project blends deep listening with scientific and cultural inquiry. 

Using a 28-metre canvas as a giant microphone, Lidén recorded the movements of the intertidal zone, capturing its hidden rhythms and textures. Through conversations with scientists, indigenous scholars, artists, and local communities, she delves into questions of how tides influence life, memory, and our collective imagination. 

Tidal Sense invites us to think beyond the tides as mere mechanical forces, and instead to consider them as ancient, living processes that weave together past and future, human and non-human worlds. The work draws on emerging research about circatidal rhythms in animals—and speculates whether humans, too, might still carry echoes of these tidal cycles within us.