Basil Kräher and Huaijin Li have designed the We Speak Softly in the Between installation.

Designed by Basil Kräher and Huaijin Li, We Speak Softly in the Between is a kinetic installation created for the Aranya Theater Festival 2025 in Qinhuangdao.

Rooted in the duo's long-distance relationship between New York and Tokyo, the work translates emotional distance into spatial language: two curved steel structures clad with 7,000 suspended aluminium panels – neither parallel nor mirrored – converging without ever meeting around a peeled tree at the centre.

Activated by sea wind, the tiles shimmer, collide and generate an ever-changing soundscape – transforming absence, longing and the rarity of human encounter into an immersive atmospheric experience.