Shirley Tse and Dana Berman Duff's Breathing Moons
The artist duo — who go by "Relational" — explore the unseen forces that bind us to the universe.
Sculptor Shirley Tse and filmmaker Dana Berman Duff collaborated on an exhibition titled "The Universe Breathes Us" at Reykjavik's King and Bang gallery in 2025. The exhibition featured a live choral performance, incorporating themes of geography, landscape, desire, and time. Their work emphasized the interconnectedness of physical elements, such as breath, moon, and tides.
Tse's photographic work "Orkney Moon" (2025) depicted a soccer ball made from rice paper resting in a Scottish field, transformed into a moon that migrated into sculptures. Berman Duff's film, "The Other Side of the Moon Is Not Dark" (2025), featured a rotating giant moon, while "The Breathing Ocean (Portal)" (2026) showed the moon meeting a video of an Icelandic choir fracturing into northern lights.
In the adjacent room, their installation "Sun and Moon" (2025) featured Tse's rice-paper moon casting changing shadows in the gallery's white light. A reel of film flapped continuously. Tse and Berman Duff's unconventional collaboration focused on dialogue, allowing each to create work in response to the other's vision. Their exhibition demonstrated the innovative use of lunar power as a metaphor for relational force.
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