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Photo by PhotobyDylan Doehner

Leena Lee is an atmosphere artist, field recordist, researcher, and designer whose work explores corporeal attunement to the environment through affective listening.

Rooted in environmental poetics, her practice centers on creating immersive atmospheres that emerge from extended listening, slow field observation, and tonal studies, weaving together the stories of both human and more-than-human entities that inhabit shared spaces. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges art, the sciences, and the humanities, particularly philosophy of nature, biology, and aural studies, integrating theoretical research with fieldwork.

She is currently pursuing postdoctoral research in Philosophy of Nature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with the project Gardening as an Ecology of Care. She also holds a PhD in Art History from UNAM, where her doctoral research examined contemporary artistic practices engaging natural phenomena as expressive media, approached through the concepts of atmosphere and embodied experience.

She hosts the radio program Sin Superficie, La Piel no es el Límite (Radio Nopal, MX) and The Weight of Atmosphere (ROVR, UK), both dedicated to active listening and featuring works in sound ecology, sound art, and experimental music, with a particular focus on practices developed by women and dissident voices. She is part of Bosque Vacío, with whom she released Aves de Nahá on the Los Angeles–based label Dinzu Artefacts, a work centered on the aural relationships between the Lacandon community of Nahá and the birds with whom they share the jungle. Their earlier composition Cantera Oriente, released on the London-based label Flaming Pines, pays homage to the lacustrine history of Mexico City and is held in the collection of the National Sound Archive of Mexico, where it is featured on its soundscape microsite.

Her work has been recognized as Best Field Recordings and New & Notable on Bandcamp, reviewed in The Wire and A Closer Listen, featured in 4'33 MAGAZINE Musique et nature, nature de la musique, and selected for Freeness playlists on BBC Radio 3.

She has participated in national and international sound art festivals, including Lips#2 Hydra (FR), Niansa (SL), Tsonami XVII (CL), Transferencias Aurales (MX), and El Aleph (MX). Her work has been exhibited at institutions including Centro Nacional de las Artes (MX), Centro Cultural España en México, Centro Cultural de Lagos (PT), and Momentum 13 Biennale (NO), among others. Through her collective work, she has received support from Ecos Sonoros and PAPIAM, both focused on sound ecology and affectivity, the latter developed in collaboration with ornithology, sound anthropology, and Maya studies.

She is a founding member of Arte+Ciencia, an internationally recognized interdisciplinary collective at UNAM that has explored the intersections of art, science, and the humanities for over fifteen years, producing festivals, exhibitions, artworks, books, conferences, and workshops. Leena has taught in the Graduate Program in Art History and at the Faculty of Arts and Design at UNAM, as well as at the Universidad del Medio Ambiente and the Faculty of Design and Architecture at La Salle University. Her creative and research practice has brought her as an invited artist and academic across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

She has contributed to publications on philosophy, design, and sound art, including Atmosphere of Sound: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption (UCLA), Resounding Spaces: Approaching Musical Atmospheres (Mimesis, Atmospheric Spaces), Ideas Sónicas (CMMAS), and Aural (Tsonami Ediciones).

  • Bosque Vacío
  • Sonic Allegories
  • Niebla
  • Instagram

Copyright Leena Lee 2026

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