INSTRUCTIONS – WALKING SCORE ONCE
Please read the entire instruction prior to scrolling down to the text on white background.
This way you don’t have to return to the instructions, you can comfortably stay with the text “once whispered, the loss of two”.

– Your body is a vessel and as such the mediator between the conscious and the unconscious, inner and outer landscapes. It’s also a connector to those who entered to the realm of the ancestors. As you walk the score your body , mind and text should become one story.
– Your read the text but you walk your story, hence it’s essential that you do not interact with any other visitors, so no talking, eye contact or try to listen to the other visitors or distant sound. If in a columbarium walk all over the place, if you are at an urn wall walk along the wall(s) use the sides as well. It’s preferred to select a day for your walk when the site is not frequented by other visitors. The initial walks in Stockholm all took place in underground columbarium.

– The basics in the score:
standing still = read one paragraph
walking = no reading but thinking about what the words and the space brings forward in you.

outline step by step.
1. Select your individual starting point in the columbarium and position your self there. Make sure to tune in to your surrounding and things like awareness to temperature, the lights, sounds, smells etc. As you know the place you are ready for the next steps.
2. Start walking slowly in any direction.
3. Stop as you find suitable.
4. As you are standing still read/whisper, the first paragraph from the white section of this page. Lift your gaze back into the columbarium.

5. Find your new direction and start walking. Repeat until you reach the end of the text.
6. As you are finished say the name of a passed one. A name you remember from the walk or someone else who comes to mind.
7. As you are outside of the Columbarium go for a beverage to reflect over the walk, alone or with your fellow walker(s). Then also read the introduction as presented in the publication “Dark Envelopes”.

BELOW THE TEXT YOU WILL BE READING AS YOU MAKE PAUSES IN YOUR WALK.

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COLUMBARIUM STOCKHOLM

Date: December 17, 2025
Start: 17:00
End: 17:59
Description Walked site: We wandered freely around the columbarium individually for about 15 minutes.
At 5 p.m. Marja-leena Sillanpää gathered us in a passageway we faced her and behind her was the rotunda. The passage was only a few meters wide where we as the invited formed a half circle looking at her. M-l view was us and the staircase as she welcomed us who were present and via radio waves, she opened up a channel to the other dimensions with a special invitation to Helene Schjerfbeck and Hilma af Klint. Then in a spontaneous order, each of us read our text. “Once Whispered, The Loss of Two” was the final one. I closed the room with a bear bell I brought from Kumano Kodo. The session ended at 5:59 p.m., one minute before closing time.
This was the official release of the 2025 edition from “Dark Envelope and Poetry”, a text based series by Marja-Leena Sillanpää. Where she invites artists to respond in writing to a specific sentence. This time around it was 3 envelopes (see img below).

Site: The Columbarium at Uppenbarelse Kyrkan, Hägersten
Built: 1959–1961
Location: Vallfrartsberget, Aspudden, Stockholm
Inauguration of the church: December 17, 1961, by Bishop Helge Ljungberg in the presence of King Gustaf VI Adolf and Queen Louise.
Architect: Johannes Olivegren.
Artworks: Ralph Bergholtz and Randi Fisher also designed a set of approximately 200 decorative details for the gravestones so that they could be individually decorated while maintaining the uniformity of the columbarium’s design.
About: The rooms in the church are arranged along an east-west axis. The entrance, takes you to the central rotunda is called the church square which was originally open but was given a glass roof in 1984. Since then the center holds a well or perhaps better described as a reflective pool with water with a glass bottom creating a light shaft filtering reflections down to both floors of the columbarium. The light shaft ends with a large rotunda having a low centered circular bed of gravel and is used as a memorial site with tea candles. The elongated columbarium has a spatial design that connects to the upper levels; from the rotunda, the rooms widen towards the east, where they converge in the small church located directly below the choir in the large church hall. Uppenbarelse kyrkan translates Revelation Church.

Date: December 20, 2025
Start: 13:00
End: 13:30
Description Walked site: The Columbarium is very plain the urn walls are made from three types of marble three colors the ceiling and walls are out of ruff cut bedrock and are covered in white paint, it is a a distance to the marble boxes holding the graves. The floor is covered with gravel. At the end of the 40 meter long tunnel shaped space there is a crucifix In 1980s a new law adjusted “permanent grave” to a 25 year cycle. Many of the graves had signs indicating that the administration are looking for the caretakers. The signs are very intrusive for a peaceful experiences an terms of size, text and number.

Site: Engelbrekts kyrkan
Built: the columbarium is an converted bomb-shelter from 1940
Location: Engelbrektsberget, Stockholm
Inauguration: 1961
Architect: Åke Tengelin
Artworks: Four stained glass windows by Einar Forseth and a crucifix by Bertil Nyström on the small altar.
About: The church was designed by architect Lars Israel Wahlman in the National Romantic style and completed in 1914.  It is named after Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson – a Swedish 15th century rebel leader and national hero. It was built atop a hill in the years 1910–14, after a design competition held in 1906.  The rock on which the church is standing was left mostly intact, in accordance to the urban planning ideals at the time, giving it a naturally elevated position in the city. The building has some features common to Byzantine architecture and has a cruciform architectural plan with a 32 m (105 ft) high nave,  making it the highest in Scandinavia. Internationally appreciated in architectural circles, the church has not been subjected to any major changes since its inauguration and is regarded as a paragon of the Swedish Art Nouveau era and the National Romantic style (source: wiki)

Date: TBA, January , 2026
Start: TBA
End:
Description:

Site: Gustav Vasa Church
Location: Odenplan, Stockholm
Inauguration of the church: 1906
Architect:  August (Agi) Lindegren (1858–1927)
Architect columbarium: Gustaf Lindgren  (original sections)
Inauguration: March 22 1924
Artworks/artists:

Today, the columbarium consists of 39 burial chambers with 7,660 burial niches with space for up to 35,000 urns. Several chambers have their own unique architecture with different shapes and designs. Each architect has left their mark on the respective extension, and no two chambers have the same color scheme. Up to 40 different types of stone material can be found on the floors and walls of the facility. The stone and marble floors have now been polished and the marble walls have been cleaned under the supervision of a conservator. In the old southern part, the old wall plaster has been removed and new plaster applied. There, the rooms have been restored to their original appearance in the 1920s. The repainting has been done with lime paint and the stucco has been given new distemper paint. All the steel grave niche frames have also been repainted and the old beautiful wrought-iron windows have been renewed. It was closed for 5 years for renovation and reopened in 2009. In the northern, newer part, the architect has restored the original color shades on the ceilings and walls. Each room has been given its original color shade. In addition to all the material treatment, a technical renovation has also been carried out. The electrical installations throughout the facility have been replaced and new lighting fixtures have been installed. The large double doors leading into the Lillkyrkan have been repainted and marbled, and the pews have also been repainted/marbled.

Co-walker: Åsa Öhrn

Högalid Church
Columbarium Högalidskyrkan (on Södermalm) has a columbarium added in 1939. Part of a culturally protected church, designed by Ivar Tengbom.
Date: TBA
Description:

Site:
Built: 1
Location: Hornstull, Södermalm, Stockholm
Inauguration of the church/columbarium:
Architect:
Artworks:
About:
Artists/Artwork:

DARK ENVELOPES & POETRY PUBLISHING

A series initiated in 2012 by artist Marja-leena Sillanpää (se)
Artists gets a sentence from which they should develop their project on 1-3 pages. At Uppenbarelsekyrkan the edition for 2026 had 6 artists and three sentences. The other artists can be seen on the envelopes below.
Once Whispered, The Loss of Two used 2 pages on the first page the following text was written as an introduction. “Situated within a fluid temporality, the work engages with atmospheric subtlety and spatial perception articulating a meditative inquiry into embodiment, liminality, and the thresholds of the unspoken. Originating from the Dark Envelopes Edition; “The Sound of Humidity Drops into Water” (2025) and itis positioned in relation to experiences of personal loss and the abstraction of world order. A thought-image wherein affect is rendered as atmospheric presence”. – Anna Viola Hallberg


The text “once whispered, the loss of two” was read in the presence of the other artists and whom ever was present.

Below Instagram post by @marjaleena.sillanpaa Dec 18, 2025 @dark.envelopes.and.poetry