From nature’s infinite musical soundscapes, to how its behavior can influence visual art, the planet is taking center stage as a creator.

Indeed, in 2024 “Nature” as an artist was established as a concept. The Sounds Right project is a music initiative that sees “Nature” being credited as an artist on major music platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music. When its songs are played, Nature earns royalties that are funneled into environmental causes. Created by the Museum of the United Nations - UN Live in partnership with Earth Percent, Sounds Right anticipates that the venture will “engage 600 million people across the globe and raise $40 million dollars for nature conservation.”

Sounds Right project
Sounds Right project

One artist who credits Nature is Kiran Gandhi, known as Madame Gandhi, who features Nature in the form of underwater sounds recorded on a trip to Antarctica on the title track of her 2025 album, "Let Me Be Water." The song’s lyrics examine “how can we exist in a world where we are listening to the planet.” “The planet is incredible,” Gandhi tells the publication JoySauce. “And we can actually use technology to bring us back to it.”

And Cosmo Sheldrake’s "Song of the Cedars," released in late 2024, spotlights Ecuador’s Los Cedros cloud forest as an artist. The track - which opens with the ambient sounds of the Los Cedros forest, acting as the backdrop to Sheldrake’s haunting paean to nature - is billed as a collaboration between the Los Cedros forest; Sheldrake; the writer and lyricist Robert Macfarlane; the field mycologist Giuliana Furci; and the legal scholar-advocate César Rodríguez-Garavito.

The track is released on MOTH records, an offshoot of the More-Than-Human-Life Project, of which Sheldrake is a member, described as “an interdisciplinary initiative advancing rights and well-being for humans, nonhumans, and the web of life that sustains us all.” As part of its release, MOTH has submitted a petition to Ecuador's copyright office “to recognize the Los Cedros cloud forest as the co-creator of this song.”

Cosmetics Business answers for Jo
Pulse at Houghton

And nature – a perennial inspiration to visual artists – is being credited with an instrumental role in in a number of art installations.

The installation Pulse, which debuts in August at the UK’s Houghton Festival, a dance and music festival in the grounds of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, is described as “an ongoing dialogue between art, technology, and the natural world,” with nature powering the installation.

Created by London architecture and design studio EBBA, led by Benni Allan, the installation is a structured canopy suspended amidst a clearing of trees, that “converts the energies of the surrounding environment into shifting light and sound,” EBBA says.

Creating an effect described as “meditative, ever evolving, and [mirroring] the rhythms of the forest,” the studio notes that “Every tree has its own voice: different densities, pitches and sizes make them as unique as our own.” The installation explores the dialogue between the environment and visitors “through our collective movements that are then translated into pulses of light and haptic vibrations creating an interplay between nature and technology.” The installation will be a permanent fixture in the grounds of Houghton Hall, with how it expresses nature shifting with the seasons.

WEB Of the Oak by Marshmallow Laser Feast Kew Gardens c Sandra Ciampone
WEB Visitors enjoy Of the Oak meditations at Kew Gardens c RBG Kew
W Eb Of the Oak by Marshmallow Laser Feast at Kew Gardens c RBG Kew 6

Image 1: Of the Oak by Marshmallow Laser Feast at Kew Gardens. Courtesy of Sandra Ciampone

Images 2 + 3: Of the Oak by Marshmallow Laser Feast at Kew Gardens. Courtesy of RBG Kew

Nature is similarly creatively generative in Of the Oak, a piece created by experiential artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast. On show at London’s Kew Gardens until the end of September, the visual and audio piece creates a “digital double” of the Lucombe oak at Kew, which is informed by data, to reveal “the hidden rhythms of the tree’s life.” Designed as an immersive experience, when visiting the installation one can also access guided meditations that invite the listener to “tune into the invisible bond between humans and trees.” Marshmallow Laser Feast notes that the installation “reveals the oak not merely as a tree, but as a living nexus of connection and reciprocity.”

The Intelligence take

As artists put sustainability front and center, spotlighting nature’s role in their work makes a powerful statement. Brands could do the same to highlight nature’s intrinsic role in their creations – whether that’s via natural ingredients, how the environment has nurtured a product, or nature as inspiration. As our Future 100 2024 trend Nature Rights pointed out, brands and organizations are seeking to set out legal rights for nature as a way to protect the environment, while the Future 100 2025 trend Biodiversity Economy sees businesses directly investing in protecting biodiversity. Crediting nature as a creative weaves captivating storytelling with the idea of paying the planet its dues.

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