Of Breath and Tears | art installation at the Art & Design Biennale 2026

Of Breath and Tears, a new research based art installation is part of the Glass Pavilion at MUSA.

Here, the human body is re-imagined as a limpid, fragile vessel, translating cosmological philosophy into material form.

Inspired by Robert Fludd’s 17th-century cosmological engravings, this project explores the universe within us. It treats glass as both a conceptual and sensorial medium.

At the center of the space is a shallow pool of crystal sand. It is the primal material of glass. The pool is imprinted by the imagined weight of tears falling from suspended glass sculptures.

Above, are 24 suspended glass vessels. These forms evoke bottles from the glass pavilion archive called ‘tear bottles’: Roman lacrimaria.

The ancient funerary vessels are traditionally believed to collect and preserve the tears of mourners.

This poetic idea, of a vessel that can contain ‘human emotions’ for more than 2500 years, inspired my work.

The installation lingers on the profound emotional weight of these artifacts. It reinterprets them not merely as relics of burial ritual. Instead, they are seen as enduring registries of the human psyche.

Re-imagined as living anatomy, these vessels merge into a single, hybrid form.

Each vessel turns upward to contain light and vital breath but also downward to pour its contents into the ground.

The work freezes the ephemeral physical act of blowing glass into a permanent structure. It creates a meditative dialogue between material vulnerability and human resilience.

It marks a contemplative coordinate where time thickens into matter, and matter dissolves back into breath.