SARAH KIRKLAND SNIDER,
MASS FOR THE ENDANGERED
“A poetic, layered, phantasmagorical story.” – Nonesuch Records
“Kyrie”
“Gloria”
“Alleluia”
“Sanctus”
“Credo”
“Agnus Dei”
Description
Six-part visual “Cathedral of the Cosmos” created with composer Sarah Kirkland Snider and writer Nathaniel Bellows. Drawing from sacred geometry, manuscript illumination, ecological symbolism, and early animation devices, the project constructs a visual liturgy for endangered life on Earth.
Originally commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street, the recording features the English vocal ensemble Gallicantus conducted by Gabriel Crouch. NPR says: "Through her smart and resplendent exploration of age-old musical forms, Snider's eco-inspired Mass for the Endangered is a blast from the past that resonates profoundly in the present."
For the visual album and subsequent live performances, I presented a unified and distinctive vision to accompany the music of Mass: the full six videos are viewed as a ‘Cathedral of the Cosmos,’ honoring and receiving the animal and plant species that no longer find life on Earth sustainable. The videos draw from architectural elements of cathedrals and grow in dimension and complexity with each video.
Read more about our collaboration at Nonesuch.com. The entire visual album is on permanent display at The Streaming Museum.
Production Credits:
Creative Direction + Visual Design:
Deborah Johnson
Unity + TouchDesigner Programming:
Louise Léssel
Produced by: Sarah Kirkland Snider +
Nonesuch Records
Mass in Process
Mass for the Endangered evolved as a six-part visual “Cathedral of the Cosmos” created in collaboration with composer Sarah Kirkland Snider and writer Nathaniel Bellows. Developed before the rise of contemporary generative-AI aesthetics, the work drew from manuscript illumination, sacred geometry, ecological symbolism, cathedral architecture, phénakistoscopes, astronomical diagrams, and early animation devices to construct a visual liturgy for endangered life on Earth.
Across six interconnected films, recurring motifs—orbital systems, endangered flora and fauna, stained-glass structures, cosmic cartography, and evolving geometric organisms—formed a symbolic ecosystem that expanded movement by movement. The project explored how the architecture and pacing of sacred music could be translated into visual systems rooted equally in ritual, ecology, grief, and wonder.
The process combined digital compositing, motion design, projection logic, collage, archival textures, and iterative visual studies developed in close dialogue with the score’s structure and emotional arc. Rather than functioning as accompaniment, the visual world was conceived as a parallel narrative space: a living cosmology unfolding alongside the music.
