Da fiskene forsvandt (2025)

– en lydfortælling om et ørkengjort hav, forliste kystsamfund, torskeøjne, håb og vilde sæler 

Da fiskene forsvandt (When the Fish Disappeared) is a podcast series that investigates the disappearance of fish from Denmark’s inner waters through a sensorial fusion of sound art, narrative journalism, and literature.

Fish have almost vanished from these waters—a reality we know from the news, yet rarely feel. After all, fish still lie neatly arranged in the supermarket refrigerator.

This series tells the story differently: through sound, voice, and text that awaken the senses and reconnect us with the sea, with old fishing traditions, and with grief.

So what is it that we are losing?

With the sea around Mols and Helgenæs as its point of departure, the listener is invited below the surface—into the angler’s gaze, the Stone Age coastal hunters, the eel fisher’s trap, the commercial fisher’s trawler, and the marine biologist’s view of a dying sea.

The series unfolds as an experiment between art and journalism. Yet the many voices woven together form a tangible and urgent attempt to approach a reality we may not yet fully understand.

The music in When the Fish Disappeared is composed by Morten Riis and created entirely from sounds recorded in Knebel Vig. Waves, rope, sand hoppers, and water itself become living instruments. Riis approaches the sea’s own resonance—dark, moving, and ultimately cathartic. Within this sonic universe we encounter The Mother of the Sea: singer Lise Dres, who performs four local folk ballads underwater at the end of a bathing jetty in Knebel. The material is shaped so that it almost feels as if nature itself is telling the story.

Writer Rasmus Theisen contributes as an alternative radio host—one who does not comment directly on the narrative. His texts emerge from a deeply personal relationship with the sea: he comes from a family of fishers and is the first generation not to work on the water. Moving between sources and stories, he circles the peninsulas of Mols, wild seals, ancient settlements, and the whalers found in childhood family photographs.

More information: molbokommunen.dk

Credits

Morten Riis – Music and sound design

Rasmus Theisen – Writer and narrator

Silja Alstrøm – Journalist

Ann Østermark – Journalist

Malte Riis – Photo and video documentation

Karen Straarup – Journalist and editor

Supported by:

Aage V. Jensen Foundations

KODA Kultur

National Park Mols Bjerge

NRGI

Tved Sparekasses Fond