Several reports and studies published in recent years have been unanimous in stating that the inhabitants of the Nordic countries are the happiest. In fact, in the latest editions of the World Happiness Reports of the United Nations, as well as in the Better Life Index of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and in The Social Progress Index of the Social Progress Imperative, the Nordic countries are consistently ranked in the top ten of the world. However, happiness –as well as silence– are generic, subjective and multidimensional concepts.

Silence always contains a double perspective: on the one hand, the stillness of contemplative plenitude, and on the other, the sinister resonance of the unknown. In a subtle way, silence manifests itself in its limits: presence or absence, fullness or emptiness, peace or peril. Surrounded by acoustic and visual noise, we yearn for the calm of the pond, the snowy landscape or the faint murmur of a stream. But silence also represents alertness, isolation, coercion, or even the absence of life.

The silence of the North is primarily human silence. The sounds of the world, its geophony and biophony, are as powerful as they are extraordinary. Even the slight whisper of the wind is breathtaking. On the other hand, the characteristic absence of human sounds in northern landscapes represent isolation, the non-social. A silence that might become a mirror of the soul itself, returning us to a feeling of loneliness or emotional desolation.