Tender Sound is a work created to dialogue with artist Liu Yue's nighttime performance Tender Hunger, which is part of Milan Design Week 2026.
Tender Sound is a work that uses sound to explore the relationships between humanity, nature, and religion. The piece is composed of three multi-layered sections of natural soundscapes, drawn primarily from field recordings I made in Italy, China, and Nepal, alongside vocal materials recorded collaboratively with Liu Yue.
The work begins with the concept of chaos: searching for the individual's longing for life in darkness, at a moment when identity has not yet been defined. The chanting of OM gives form to all things, while the cowbell, a Hindu symbol of the universal mother, fills the space with resonance. Yet as the symbiotic relationship between humanity and the natural world takes shape, care and exploitation come to coexist, until human presence and technology consume the entire space of existence. The breaking of balance calls for redemption; the end of one cycle marks the beginning of the next. All that remains is burned by flame, dissolved into water, and from here life begins again. A solitary cowbell echoes across a boundless space.
