Barcelona’s Concert for the Biocene at the Liceu
On 22 June 2020, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu hosted a string quartet before 2,292 potted plants. Eugenio Ampudia’s artwork turned a theatre reopening into a reflection on nature, while the plants were destined for healthcare workers.
A theatre returns to activity
Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu resumed activity after Spain’s pandemic state of alarm with an unusual performance on 22 June 2020. Every audience seat was assigned to a potted plant. Artist Eugenio Ampudia conceived the event as an artwork about humanity’s relationship with other living things, rather than a conventional concert with a reduced human audience. His own account identifies the date, venue and 2,292 plants. The resulting scene made the auditorium itself an essential part of the work. Artist’s account
Music for a leafy auditorium
A string quartet performed Giacomo Puccini’s Crisantemi. The arrangement preserved familiar concert rituals: musicians occupied the stage and faced an audience, but that audience could neither buy tickets nor applaud. Human listeners could follow the performance online. Contemporary reporting describes the musicians bowing at its conclusion while recorded natural sounds supplied a different kind of response. The event therefore operated both as a live musical performance and as an image circulated far beyond Barcelona. Contemporary report
The audience becomes a gift
The plants had another intended destination after occupying the theatre. They were to be presented to healthcare professionals at Barcelona’s Hospital Clínic in recognition of their work during the pandemic. This practical afterlife gave the installation a human connection without bringing a conventional audience back into the seats. The leafy gathering was temporary; its members could leave the opera house and become individual gifts. That detail links an environmental artwork with a public expression of gratitude. Catalan News
What Biocene meant
Curator Blanca de la Torre suggested the term Biocene, placing life at the centre of the project’s imagined future. Ampudia contrasted this with accounts of an Anthropocene shaped by human damage to the planet. These are artistic propositions, not scientific evidence that plants listened to or benefited from Puccini. The work’s documented achievement was to change how a familiar cultural space was seen. The accompanying illustration reconstructs that idea; it is not a photograph of the performance. Project description
Puccini - Crisantemi
Wirénkvartetten
A separate performance of the Puccini work heard at the Liceu. This is Wirénkvartetten’s recording, not the Barcelona concert.
Listen on SoundCloud ↗Follow the evidence.
- Eugenio Ampudia: Concierto para el Bioceno ↗
- Catalan News: Plants serenaded at Barcelona’s Liceu ↗
- El País: Barcelona opera house reopens for plants ↗
AI-assisted writing, with institutional and primary sources. Illustration is a reconstruction, not an archival photograph. Published October 31, 2026; updated October 31, 2026. Our approach
